


76 + 127: How We Were Made

by clickclickBANG



Series: Strength in Numbers: a collection of SEP stories [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Action, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bad Jokes, Bad Spanish, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Smut, Hair-pulling, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, OH BOY THIS AGAIN, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Reaper76 Week, Rough Sex, Sex, Smut, Swearing, THESE TAGS NEVER STOP BEING EMBARRASSING, end me jfc, in my smut?, it's more likely than you think, once again, real action scenes?, so much swearing, yall thought I swore a lot last time, you ain't seen nothin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:44:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickclickBANG/pseuds/clickclickBANG
Summary: It's not quite the beginning of their story, but maybe something like the second chapter.It's the chapter of how they were made.It's the chapter of how they were made great.It's the chapter of how they were made great together.SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.More bad jokes, more bad Spanish, more "fun" - now with 2x as many plot points and action scenes!---------Reaper76Week Day 1: How We Were





	1. How We Were Made

**Author's Note:**

> ARE YOU READY, AMIGOS? Who's up for another round of "ESTES PENDEJOS PUEDEN OBTENERLO."
> 
> First, some groundwork:
> 
> HOLY SHIT, GUYS - I literally NEVER expected such an amazing reception for Shiver. I thought maybe five people would read it at best, but JESUS CHRIST, you guys read it, kudos it, liked it, reblogged it on tumblr and TWITTER, COMMENTED on it, COMPLIMENTED IT??, and even were inspired to draw stuff based on it??
> 
> I am fucking HUMBLED and HONORED, you guys don't even know. Thank YOU all so much - muchas gracias, los amo a todos.
> 
> SO LET'S FUCKIN GO!
> 
> 1\. Slurs - I should clarify that I don't use slurs during sexy scenes because I personally find them a turn off. I do my damnedest not to use them in the majority of my non-smut writing too, but on very rare occasions, they do show up, usually to emphasize the gravity of a situation or to make something more "real world" (which sucks, btw). In Chapter 1, there is onee slur use against gay men in a flashback scene. It is the only time this word occurs.
> 
> 2\. Plot? - THIS SHIT HAS TWO CHAPTERS, I'M SO UPSET. Chapter 1 is 100% plot, build-up, and also action scenes. There is violence but nothing graphic and pretty much nothing you would see outside of the game itself. Chapter 2 is like 30% remaining build-up, 70% smut. I won't be offended if you skip to that, but references are made back to Chapter 1 a lot.
> 
> 3\. Indiana - We're gonna get on this topic one way or another. I have invested WAY TOO MUCH TIME into playing, reading, and understanding Overwatch (a friend knows this TOO well - I love you and I'm sorry), so let me give y'all some info: Indiana - that place where Jack Morrison is "born" - is currently the meth capital of the United States. It has been royally DEVASTATED by Pence as its governor, and its future looks bleak for the foreseeable future. If anyone is reading this in Indiana, you have my sympathy for your state. The rough timeline estimates work out that Gabriel and Jack are "born" within the next 4 - 6 years, which means it it "very likely" that Jack has been heavily influenced by the problems facing his state. I love to poke fun at the farmboy as much as the next person, but it's probably not that lighthearted or happy in Jack's early life.
> 
> 4\. Spanish - Spanish translations are provided at the end. I'll edit when the hovertext is in.
> 
>  
> 
> "This is My World" - Esterly ft. Austin Jenkles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRt9EngN2pY): This is the song referenced in Chapter 1!

_Heavy hangs the fear in your heart_  
_Like cinder blocks crushing your chest_  
_It's a prison break, escape from the dark_

_Can't get it out of your head  
_

_Whoa_  
_Whoa_  
_Whoa_

 _This is my world!_  
_Oh, you took a wrong turn!_  
_Now you're stuck in my world!_  
_Trust me, this gonna hurt!_  
_Fire it up, and watch it burn!_  
_This is my world!_

_  
\---------_

 

**Setenta y Seis: Inside the Box**

Day Unknown, August 2045: 0413 - Somewhere in Boise National Forest, Idaho

 

The ear-splitting _shrieking_ of the alarm wakes him right the fuck back up.

Jack sighs defeatedly to himself as he hears 81 yell something from another cell, and more groans and whines arise from the rest of the block.  In the bed above him, he hears 78 grumble, “For a second there, I started dreaming they were gonna let us have this one, but fuck that noise.”

It had been their own fault, really - at this point, three days deep into the simulation, they had let themselves get lulled into the dull, blissful silence.  Jack should have recognized what was going to happen the moment half of the block was snoring and passed the fuck out.  

After all, the alarms only came when all of them were asleep.

Jack presses the heels of his palms into his exhausted, stinging eyes as both the alarm and 81 continue to scream, with the pitch of 81’s low voice steadily rising into a fucking train whistle until someone - probably 93 - yells over everything “SHUT.  THE.  FUCK.  UP.  JACKASS.”

That gets 81 to stop his god awful noise, and then, about thirty seconds later, the alarm stops crying too.

“...We gotta do something,” 78 sighs and Jack - despite not really being frustrated with his bunkmate, and more just being frustrated with fucking _life_ \- snaps at him harder than he meant, “ _I keep telling everyone_ \- we HAVE to take shifts.”

“And who’s gonna actually keep a schedule for that, huh?” 82 groans at him from across the hall, “I’m not letting anyone cheat me out of my sleep.”

Jack removes the press of his hands from his eyelids and stares up dully at the underside of the cot hanging above him.  It’s a dull metal, bolted into a dull concrete wall, in their dull little prison cell - no windows, only partially-working lighting in the entire cell block.  It’s a miracle all the cells have running water in the tiny sinks and disgusting toilets.

Jack watches expressionlessly as the cot above him shakes a little as 78 rolls over, or something.

Sleep whispers to him from behind his eyelids -

Jack wants to go home.

No, not “home” home.  Fuck Indiana.  Fuck everything about Indiana.  Fuck everything about Indiana except for the fact that it _does_ have warm, comfortable beds and probably decent pillows too - Jack would give everything just for a semi-decent pillow, he doesn’t ask for much just -

He forces his eyelids open again -

No, fuck Indiana.  He wants to go home to West Point.  He wants to go back to New York.  Fuck, he’d even gladly run drills at this point, he’d stand up in front of his Spanish professor and recite Don Quixote in traditional Spanish with his mouth full of rocks, he’d give anything to be back in a warm, comfortable dorm room, even squish himself into a tinyass dorm bed -

He forces his eyelids open again -

He wants to see his friends, he wants to eat real food again, he wants to run on a real track or shit, even on a real road - pacing up and down in the cell all day has been miserable, he’s done fucking upside-down wall push-ups for hours just to keep himself preoccupied, forcing himself not to just lie in the cold, unforgiving cot all day - if it even is day, he’s rapidly losing track of time, trusting his biorhythm to keep him going, but it too is starting to fail -

He forces his eyelids open again -

He wants to be out of this cell, he wants to be in a part of the facility where the alarms don’t ring, where he doesn’t have to listen to 85 whine about how her fingernails hurt or hate the fact that 82 grinds his teeth in his sleep, where he doesn’t have to wait for the wave of nausea and vomiting and blood to hit so that he can spill his guts into the dingy toilet as 78 adamantly tries to ignore him, and he tries to ignore when 78 does the same thing and -

He wants to even be back in the mess hall -

He would even give anything to see that shitty-ass scoreboard, where they rank all the supersoldier candidates by some sort of “performance” - he would even be happy to see his miserable 34th place in the rankings -

He wants to hear people actually make shitty small talk and crack terrible jokes and even occasionally have a real laugh as they commiserate over the terrible food and painful injections and the feeling of their bones cracking and rehealing and cracking again -

He wants -

Above all else -

He wants -

He forces his eyelids open -

He wants to see Gabriel.

This time, though, Jack actually sits up in his cot.

It’s fucking unreal to think that it’s only been three days since he last saw Gabriel - when they shunted off the smaller groups into different sections of the makeshift prison, Gabriel gave him one last, surprisingly bright grin before disappearing with the 126-150 group into a different hallway.

Jack swings his legs over the side of his cot and sighs again.

It would be wrong to say that supersoldier candidates were “dropping like flies,” because they _weren’t_ , not _really_ \- but there were less of them every month.  And it had only been six months since the program started, but suddenly, the original group of 150 candidates was down to only 125, with people disappearing sporadically from the ranks every so often.

...They are told that they quit the program.

Rumors flew in the beginning - 32 was a quitter, of course he went home, but 46?  No one fucked with her - _something_ had to have happened to _her_ , she was too strong, too proud to quit.  People spread the idea that the injections were laced with low levels of poison to force them to either die or grow tolerant until eventually the fucking general came down to the mess hall one morning and told them all to grow the fuck up because the government wasn’t interested in poisoning its newest assets.

At this point though, on day three of the prison simulation, with less than 6 hours of cumulative sleep in roughly 72 hours

Jack suspects the others did actually just quit.

He sure fucking feels like quitting.

Fuck, West Point would probably let him reenroll at this point - it’s only been six months since he left.

Jack sinks his head back into his hands again, and almost falls right back asleep with the cool, comforting darkness fuzzing his head and pulling sharply at his eyelids.  He can already hear people snoring away in the rest of the block (he’s in the 76-100 group, of course, but at this point there’s only 19 of them, and he’s the unofficial “number leader” of the ever-shrinking “cohort”) and he resists the urge to crack their skulls against the dull concrete prison walls -

Or crack his own against them.

 _We could maybe actually think of a fucking plan if we rotated sleep shifts_ , Jack grits to himself as he rips his hands away from his heavy, swollen eyelids.

Because, really, the government wasn’t interested in just straight torturing its newest assets.

The whole fucking point of the simulation was to test them.

They had even been told as much.

The objective was simple: you’re getting put in a cell with one other cellmate and the rest of your number group in a cell block for one week - get out.  The sooner people got out, the better their “performance.”  There are no other rules or restrictions or even incentives.  Get out, get points, get a higher ranking.

A few times a day - every two hours in what Jack assumes is “daylight hours” - a guard patrols and occasionally yells at them, or bangs on their bars.  There is a very big, very obvious cell door key hanging off the guard’s belt.  The guard carries a very big, very obvious heavy gun that probably fires paintballs or rubber bullets but it certainly _looks_ intimidating, and everyone was so sore and exhausted even at the beginning of the simulation that no one initially made much of an effort to fuck with the guard.

It didn’t help that the guards are 08, 11, 14, 16, 19, and 22.

See, that was something they _hadn’t_ informed the number groups - the first number group, 1-25, had not been assigned to a cell block.

They had been given guard duty.

 _Bullshit Stanford Prison shit_ , Jack thinks eloquently, rising from the cot to start pacing.  He doesn’t like it - he hates pacing, he’d rather be running - but he has to stretch and warm up his stiff, aching muscles.  Launching straight into a bunch of push-ups and sit-ups is a bad idea with how fucking tired he is.  He feels another wave of nausea hit him and he swallows it back down.

No doubt 1-25 had been told that they would earn more points for the longer they kept the others in.  When it became pretty apparent that the fastest way out was to try and get the very big, very obvious key, the 76-100 group had rallied, pulling every trick they could think of - they faked being sick (and actually got sick), they pretended to fight each other (at one point a real fight broke out between 93 and 96), they chanted shit really loudly and obnoxiously until they all hated each other, they tried playing dead.

Their guards were not fazed in the slightest.

 _They have to be getting information from the other guards - the other cell blocks must be trying all sorts of shit too_ , Jacks thinks, forcing himself to stretch and bend and try to loosen some of the stitches in his ribs.  He hisses slightly as he flexes, but it forces him to stay awake.

Things had kind of stayed together for the first 16 hours.

And then night had set in.

And that was when the alarms began.

Sleep had been an elusive companion ever since then.

Sure, they had struggled to hash out some sort of sleeping shift schedule, but it rapidly deteriorated when people started accusing each other of oversleeping, or when - Jack is pretty certain - some of the more unruly members of the group began deliberately waking the others just to fuck with them.  It had been funny the first time.

It quickly stopped being funny when none of them were sleeping right.

It didn’t help that he’s also pretty certain they’re cutting back on their rations.  Each meal was an ugly mix of grounded “canned meat” with some sort of stringy vegetables and meager rice or something, alongside two pills to keep up their enhancements.  The lack of real food and the sudden, overwhelming rush of testosterone, adrenaline, something synthetically metallic, and blood made every single one of them sick, causing them to vomit up what bare nourishments they did get, and only aggravating the downward spiral of no sleep-no food-nowhere to go-nothing to do-extremely volatile excess energy.

Jack stands by one of the dull, concrete walls and bends himself over before slowly reverse-walking his legs up the side.  The rush of blood to his already throbbing head just makes it feel worse, but the weird mix of exhaustion and energy courses through him and he -

He cannot tell if he wants to fight something

Or fuck something.

...Probably both.

That was the other thing: the fucking _raging_ mix of hormones and chemicals - both natural and artificial - had only cranked individual personalities, energies, attentions, aggressions, and desires to the fucking _max_.  It had been apparent from the day of orientation that all 150 of them were between 18 and 25 years old - all physically fit, largely martially-oriented people from a multitude of military programs across the country.  Jack and Gabriel had been the top two picks from West Point, but Jack had recognized a handful of the others as being from the academy - like three upperclassmen and ten lowerclassmen and two from their own group - Adrien and Sarah.

So yeah

Of course both fighting and fucking had started occurring within the first week.

 _Pinche mierda_ , there had been packets of lube and condoms in their supply chests in their bunk rooms from the very first day onwards.  The program directors had certainly known what to expect from a bunch of high-energy, high-intensity young adults.

Jack sighs again, not sure if he loves or hates the pressure in his head and neck, before pushing his arms up off his elbows and onto his hands.

Upside-down push-ups suck.

Gabriel’s wide, smug, _fucking charming_ grin flashes into his head.

Jack winces against another wave of nausea and sets into his first rep.  He’ll only do five at a time - before the mere act of being upside down makes him want to puke - then put himself back into a normal push up position on the floor, then repeat a few times until he actually throws up or gives himself a nosebleed.  He doesn’t know what the _fuck_ is in the “enhancements,” but every other person in the group has had nosebleeds or mild seizures.

It had been fucking _terrifying_ the first month.

After that, the fear slowly eased up when everyone started getting them.  Apparently that made it...more normal, though Gabriel loved to point out that even if 100% of all 150 of them got the nosebleeds and seizures, that statistically proves nothing except that the chemicals are fucking _all_ of them up instead of a subset of them.  Jack loved to point out that Gabriel was not very good at math, and that would cause Gabriel to point out “Shut the fuck up, Jack, I passed three levels of statistics at West Point” which would cause Jack to point out “So did I, _pendejo_ \- I had to help you study for all three of them.”

Jack does his push ups and then slowly puts himself back down on the ground when 78 groans from his cot, “Dude, you gotta _try_ to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, last time that happened the alarm went off,” Jack sighs, letting himself slump face-down on the cool, dull concrete floor.

Fuck, even that feels comfortable.

“Twenty minutes of sleep is better than fucking yourself up like that,” 78 sighs, flopping his head over the side of the cot, his dark hair unruly from his restless, sleepless night.  His dark skin looks especially lackluster with the no sleep-no food-no sunshine triple combo, but Jack supposes he probably looks significantly worse.  78 squints at him before muttering, “...At least get back on your bed.”

“Can’t,” Jack mumbles, partially to 78, partially to himself, and partially to the dull, concrete floor, “Can’t get up.”

They stay like that for a second before Jack says more somberly, “We need to fucking get out of here.”

“I’m game to try more shit if you can think of it,” 78 grumbles, “I can’t think straight.”

“I’ve never been able to think straight,” Jack chuckles weakly against the floor and suddenly -

“I keep _telling_ you,” 82 growls at them from across the way, “Just fucking offer to suck 16’s dick for the key.”

“Unlike you, 82, I have fucking _standards_ ,” Jack shouts back and that gets a cry of “OI, YOU WANNA GO” from 96 down the hall.  Jack rolls his eyes and forces himself to at least get up on his arms again.

“96, you’re fucking 82 so you clearly have no tastes either,” Jack calls out to her and that gets a round of whooing and “oh shits” from some of the more alert, more awake members and 78 snorts lazily.

“127 is not a high standard,” 96 yells back and people are giggling now, but Jack just

Jack just presses his throbbing forehead against the cold, dull, concrete floor, wishing it would crack open and swallow him whole.

“He’s currently in first place, so I’m pretty sure he’s actually _setting_ the standard,” Jack snaps and 78 actually laughs at that one - that’s a plus - but Jack

Jack doesn’t laugh.

Because the biggest problem with SEP

Is that he actually _has not_ fucked Gabriel yet.

“Is he actually as good in bed as he is at the simulations?” 94 cracks back and Jack feels his headache intensify before he finally growls out, “...I don’t know.”

The laughter in the dull, concrete cell block dies down and Jack is too fucking exhausted to be embarrassed but -

“...Dude,” 78 says with a mix of shock, pity, and sympathy, “... _DUDE_.”

“I know,” Jack mumbles as 82 lets out a howl of laughter and Jack can hear his cot squeaking with how much he’s rolling around in it.

“Holy _SHIT_ , 76, you talk a big game, but you’re just full of hot air,” 82 wails and Jack is too tired to even blush properly.

“76, you gotta get on that,” 87 says a ways down the hall, “Or someone else will.  I guarantee you half the girls are into him.  41 won’t shut the fuck up about him.”

“That’s not a problem,” snorts Jack, “He’s the second gayest guy I know.”

“OH SHIT, IS HE REALLY?” shouts 99 loudly before stammering, “I mean, uh -”

“Literally NO ONE CARES,” 96 hisses at him, “We’re all fucking trapped here, who gives a shit what genitals you like.”

“Yeah, and we’re all fucking trapped in these cells too,” Jack mumbles, forcing himself to start some regular push up reps.  Everything is a mix of hot and clammy and warm and cold.  Jack feels vaguely like throwing up but he powers through the rest of his set.

It’s been six months since they started in SEP -

Seven months since he practically begged Gabriel to join him in the program -

Eight months since he broke up with his long-distance boyfriend -

Ten and half months since he knew - like, consciously knew, was vibrantly aware of - how deeply he cared and felt for his best friend.

Jack winces, sighs, taking a breath, before pushing into another set.

He knew - he spent two and half months knowing - that he should’ve broken up with Andrew sooner.  He probably should’ve done it a year ago, when he started laughing a little too loud and a little too long at Gabriel’s jokes, but a big part of him was in denial.

Even if he hadn’t been enamored with Andrew anymore, even if he had been loathe to admit it -

A very strong part of him had refused to let go of his last good - last meaningful - attachment to home.

To “home” home.

Sometimes he still dreams of it - wide, endless blue skies full of fluffy clouds on a hot summer day; running through crisp, chill autumn mornings to get his blood pumping, to get his thoughts going, to feel like he was actually going to escape the miserable little fuck of a farming community on the edge of Bloomington; chucking snowballs at friends on the first day of winter -

Curling up with Andrew in a small, secret corner of the school, away from cruel whispers or prying eyes or harsh shouts of “fuck off, fags” -

...but it has not been his home for years now.

Without Jack knowing it, without Jack meaning to

His heart had found home somewhere else

With someone else.

Someone with dark, mischievous eyes and wide, languid, smug smiles, with fluid Spanish and a twisted but incredible sense of humor, with movements as graceful as a dancer and as hard-hitting as a boxer, with a mind that was _admittedly_ pretty good at Statistics but terrible at Calculus, with a deep, terrible, keen, incredible awareness of history and tactics and sheer brilliance at using them -

Someone with the deepest, most resounding laughter Jack has ever heard.

Jack sighs to himself.

He’s got it so _bad_.  He’s absolutely, 100% fucked for Gabriel.

Without Jack knowing it, without Jack meaning to

He had become willing to leave every home he’s ever known - blue skies of Indiana, dilapidated farming towns with crumbling, boarded up storefronts and meth houses, small dorm rooms and high quality classes and trees that turned brilliant shades of red and gold and amber in the fall, friends who never judged him, friends who laughed at his stupid jokes, friends who were amazed that Jack picked up Spanish and then French so fast and were awed that he was considering starting German, friends - real friends -

The gentle embrace of Andrew in quiet moments where no one could hurt them, where no one could find them - quiet, calm, dull concrete moments of a surprisingly warm, surprisingly long-lasting love and tenderness -

Without Jack knowing it, without Jack meaning to -

He had become willing to leave every home he’s ever known

To follow Gabriel to the ends of the earth, to drop themselves in cold facilities and fake prison experiments, to strap themselves to beds, to soldier on as the pain of the enhancements broke their bones and ripped their muscles and churned their blood and then remade them anew, to suffer through nearly thirty-six hours without sleep just to think of Gabriel all over again.

Without Jack knowing it, without Jack meaning to

He had become willing to follow Gabriel into hell and back.

Jack sighs and begins another set of regular push ups.

He hadn’t done it intentionally, and the decision to break up with Andrew _had_ been difficult to make: it wasn’t like they had been some short, some woefully naive high school thing - the two of them had dated for nearly four years before Jack knew he had to sever it.

Even if Jack had known it had been the right thing to do, even when he’d dragged it out to winter break to force himself to do it in person -

Even when he knew it was like stitching up wounds -

It had still hurt.

And despite practically begging and confessing his...strong feelings to Gabriel to get him to come to SEP, Jack actually hadn’t even considered doing anything physical with him until last month - between spitting up blood every other night, the ruthless simulations, the exhausting work-outs, Jack hadn’t found time to do anything but feel like dying.  He didn’t know how so many of the others had managed to waste precious time that could be spent showering or sleeping on fucking each other.

At the end of each day, Jack just climbed into his bunk, curled up on his side, and passed the fuck out until the drill alarm woke them up for their pre-dawn exercises.

Fuck, that sounds _so good_.

Jack inhale-exhales

One-two

Inhale-exhales

Three-four

And then starts walking himself back up the walk.

To his credit, Gabriel - normally impatient for anything and everything he wanted - had not actually, well...said anything, or even suggested anything.  Hell, they hadn’t even really discussed the fact that they were both mutually infatuated with each other since January, when they decided to 1) join SEP and 2) not rush anything due to Jack having just crushed Andrew’s heart and 3) Jack being rather miserable with himself for being a coward about it.

After that, well…

There had been _a lot_ of vomiting.

...like six months of vomiting.

The idea of attempting to even make a move would induce a wave of nausea.

So even though neither of them had said it, there had been a shared mutual understanding of, “I’m not gonna fuck you when either one of us is spitting up blood and chunks of canned meat.”

Neither of them had fully realized it would push them to six months of just obnoxious jokes, some playful swearing, and a lot of flirting.

...Like excessive amounts of flirting.

...Like everyone had already assumed they were together within days of joining.

Jack groans to himself as he begins another set of wall reps.

He was totally fucked.

Because now the changes from the injections were starting to really show themselves - people who were already pretty fit were beginning to show extremely toned figures, personalities were beginning to settle back down, real friendships were starting to form, and a genuine sense of camaraderie and trust was building.

Also Gabriel was transforming from “he’s attractive” to “ _Pinche mierda, Dios mio, quiero que me cojas_.”

The kid from LA had always been well-built - he boxed constantly and was one of the few people who could keep up with Jack on their runs - but whatever they were putting into the SEP candidates, while physically painful and frustrating, was finally starting to “enhance” Gabriel.

And _joder, qué chingados_ , it _showed_.

And not just physically - Jack likes to think he’s not _that_ shallow.

No, Gabriel took to SEP like a moth to the flame.

He had been the first one to _get it_ \- to actually comprehend the program, to realize exactly what the directors were hoping to accomplish by setting up a scoreboard and ranking them.  The tests had started small - fastest run times, most push ups, fastest person to get out of a maze, the winner of a chess tournament, the winner of a Risk tournament, the best player of a bunch of fighting and strategy games, the most effective fighter in a sparring tournament, the works - and Gabriel had not initially started out on top, not when there were so many crazy adjustments being made to all the candidates’ physical and emotional states.

But Gabriel was _driven_ to “solve the problem and play the game” as he called it.

And seemingly three months ago -

He did.

His name had not moved from the number 1 ranking since then.

His spree seemed unending - not only was he now consistently the fastest person out of every maze they could construct, he could actually lead other people out of it faster, better, more efficient than anyone else.  The last maze simulation, the top ten candidates had been assigned ground teams and told to lead them out of the maze from a remote location using only the information the ground team gave them.

Gabriel’s team had been out a solid half hour before the second place team.

Even now, Jack knows Gabriel has already found a way out of his cell.

Jack just has no idea _what he did_.

 _Think outside the box_ , he can practically hear Gabriel whisper incessantly to him in his rattling, loose brain.

 _I can’t, Gabe_ \- _I’m fucking trapped inside the box_.

_You just gotta assess the situation critically.  You have advantages, Jack - you just gotta find them._

Advantages.

Sure.

Being locked in a cell has zero advantages over a guard in light body armor and a rubber-bullet gun.

The haze of sleepiness and exhaustion and pent-up frustration and roiling, thunderous energy in his veins is killing every idea in his head.

_Look at your situation, think of what you have that 16 or 14 doesn’t._

“...So you are you gonna suck 16’s dick or nah?” 83 asks him vaguely from across the hall.

 _Sucking dicks is thinking outside the box, right?_ Jack half-wonders to himself, half to whatever sliver of Gabriel exists in his exhausted mind.  He can practically _see_ Gabriel’s shrug - Gabriel would understand if Jack sucked a dick to get out of jail.  Gabriel would probably do that himself.

Had Gabriel sucked his guard’s dick for the key?

The thought alone makes his head pound harder.

Jack grunts, “Fuck off.  Get 99 to do it.”

“Dude, I fucking _will_ ,” 99 whines but 100 snorts, “16 won’t want you, asshole.  At least 76 is attractive.”

Reflexively, Jack makes a face as 78 chuckles.

“Y’all know I fucking hear you, right?” Jack asks loudly and 100 calls back, “Oh, we know.  We just don’t care.”

_Think, Jack.  Think about your advantages._

_I don’t have any, Gabriel._

_You can think outside of the box.  I can’t.  I’m not like you.  I’m not good enough.  Not smart enough._

_I’m inside the box._

_I’ve always been inside the box._

He’s been running to escape from his problems for longer than he’s known Gabriel, since back when his home was wide blue skies and dilapidated buildings and meth houses and his increasingly-drunk father and his increasingly-sadder mother and his increasingly-angry brother, since back when his home was quiet, dull, concrete moments with Andrew -

He cannot just run out of this one, out of this problem.  Even if that’s all he wants to do.

_I’m locked inside the box._

“I care,” 82 groans, “Can we stop talking about sucking dicks for once and actually get more sleep?”

“Some of us like sucking dicks,” Jack huffs as he does another push up and 96 corrects him, “Some of us like sucking YOUR dick, 82 - but you can sure as hell bet we won’t if you keep complaining.”

“Oh fuck,” 78 chortles at 96’s “threat” and Jack finds himself...kinda laughing at that one.

“You’re alright, 96,” Jack calls out to her and she groans, “Not all of us are here to impress you, Captain America, so fuck off.  I’m tired and whether I like it or not, none of us are getting outta this shit without figuring something out.”

“I’m just waiting for 86 to turn into the Hulk and rip the bars open,” 84 admits and there’s some laughter at that, causing 86 to grumble, “We’re all gonna turn into Deadpool at this rate.”

“That might be kinda cool,” 79 sighs wistfully, and someone else - 92 - laughs but it sounds more a like a harsh, desperate cough, “Think we could hack someone up and throw them through the bars?  They’ll just regenerate, right?”

_Then stop thinking outside the box, Jack._

“But who actually wants to _look_ like Deadpool?” 82 asks, and 100 sighs, “Is that really all you’re concerned about?  What about the fact that he’s got never-ending cancer or some shit?”

“I already feel like that, so all that’s left to lose are my good looks,” 82 shoots back and Jack snaps right at him, “I have some bad news for you -”

_Think inside it._

Jack stops mid-push-up.

82 is growling something about Jack needing to fuck off, and other people are just mindlessly chattering away about comic books and superheroes and how much they miss home, but Jack kicks his legs off the wall and flips over into a bridge, and then hurls himself forward out of that to land in a springy crouch and 78 jolts, shouting, “JESUS, WHAT THE FUCK -”

Jack scans the small, dull, concrete cell with surprisingly renewed vigor and -

“Hey,” he shouts out to the hallway, “Anyone got any idea of the time?”

“No clue,” 91 mutters, as 83 says, “Maybe like...4 or 5 am?  There’s no sunlight in here.”

Jack stares intensely at the bars on the cell door, at the walls around them, at the ceiling -

“Alright, everyone,” Jack says as the people in the group mumble, “I got an idea - and if y’all wanna sleep in a real fucking bed tonight, well - fuck it, you might as well try it.”

“Great motivational speech there, champ,” 82 says dryly, and Jack rushes over to the bars of his cell to look across the hall.  82 and 83 are lying about in their cots, their shapes merely dark, lumpy shadows in the half-light, but Jack’s not really looking at them -

He’s looking at their cell door and -

“82, I could literally not give a shit if you get out of that cell or not,” Jack growls at him, “But our cells are the first ones when the guards walk in, so I need you to fucking at least try on this, okay?”

The lump on the top bunk wiggles a little, and Jack sees a sleepy eye squint at him from over a thin, ratted blanket.

“Why the fuck should I help you, asshole?” 82 asks.

Jack stares fiercely at that single eye he can see in the shadows:

“If I get the key, I’ll open your cell door.”

82 shifts a bit more and now both eyes are staring at him hard.

“...And if we get the key?” 82 asks in a low, threatening rumble.  Jack gives him as charming a smile as he can manage and shrugs, “Then you’re out, aren’t you?”

Suddenly there’s a glimmer of shimmering teeth cracked into a wry grin in the half-darkness.

“Let’s hear your big idea, Steve Rogers.”

\---------

 _Can you feel it coming alive?_  
_Daylights turning into the nights_  
_Locked up for the rest of your life_  
_Step it up, get ready to fight_  
_Whoa_  
_Whoa_  
_Whoa_

\---------

“This is the dumbest, stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever done,” 78 hisses at him in a trembling, cracking voice and Jack glares at him sharply, snapping, “Shut the fuck up -”

“Asshole, this is the craziest fucking idea -”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, ADRIEN,” Jack whispers loudly, “They’re coming!”

The noises simmer down in the hall just as the thud-thudding footsteps grow closer and the gate to the only exit in the hall slides open -

“Alright, fuckwads, I know some of you are awake - that alarm hasn’t gone off in awhile,” 16 grumbles with a yawn, “Do I gotta wake up the rest of you too?  I heard rumors that someone might offer to suck my dick or something?  I dunno, 14 didn’t really seem to have a clear idea of that last night -”

The footsteps come to a halt -

Every muscle in Jack’s body _burns_ with both exhaustion and boundless energy -

He wonders if his enhancements are starting to kick in too.

“...What the fuck…?” 16 asks incredulously as the slow steps start to move again, shuffling towards the other side of the cell block -

Across from him, 78 shuts his eyes with a small, trembling wince of pain and a soft hiss.  Jack squeezes his own eyes shut and begs for the chemicals and hormones and good karma to kick in -

The footsteps pause, and then begin wandering over to their side of the hall -

The deathly -

Still -

Quiet -

Dull -

 _Empty_ -

Concrete hall.

Jack feels the sweat building on the palms of his hands against the cool, dry concrete and he slips just a tiny bit -

“What the fucking shit,” 16 continues to wonder, before shouting, “I don’t know what the _fuck_ you guys think you’re doing, but this isn’t fucking funny.”

Dead, dull, concrete silence answers him.

Jack’s forearms throb and he shuts his eyes again -

Inhale-exhale

One-two

Inhale-exhale

Three-four

He pictures the cell block - every cell door shut and locked, blankets sitting in haphazard piles on cots, water dripping loudly from one of the faucets, the dead, dull concrete echoing of solo footsteps against the barren floor -

Every cell -

Empty.

Jack thinks he might be breathing loudly -

“Fucking _fuck_ ,” 16 hisses to himself, “Shit, shit, shit, what the fuck -”  There’s the frantic squeaking of frantic footsteps against dull concrete flooring and Jack panics for a second, thinking 16 might leave instead -

There’s a rustling of fabric outside of their cell -

78 shoots him a wide-eye look of flabbergasted shock and startled amazement and Jack feels a thrill of exhilaration run up his spine -

 _Think inside the box_.

The key slides into the cell door and clicks.

Jack and 78 lock eyes with each other -  

16 slides the wall-to-wall cell door open -

Cell doors that have bars that span wall-to-wall…

But not floor-to-ceiling.

There’s about a foot and a half of dull concrete overhang descending from the ceiling of every cell -

Which is barely - just barely - enough space for someone to wedge themselves in a corner.

So 16 slides the wall-to-wall but not floor-to-ceiling cell door open before there’s some more rustling and then -

 _Against all fucking odds_ -

He steps inside.

 _[This is my world!_  
            _Oh, you took a wrong turn!_  
_Now you're stuck in my world!]_

 _  
_ He’s...about average height, just under 6 feet, decently well-built as they all are, covered in light body armor and carrying the rubber bullet rifle in his hands as he takes another step inside warily, turning his head in small motions as he sweeps over the empty, cold, dull concrete room, whispering, “What in the fucking hell -”

He doesn’t finish the sentence.

Jack gives a small nod to 78 -

And they fucking launch themselves out of the upper ceiling corners from up above the cell door.

 _[Trust me, this gonna hurt!_  
            _Fire it up, and watch it burn!_  
_This is my world!]_

Since he’s just slightly closer, Jack lands on him first, bodily slamming him to the cell floor as 16 lets out a loud shout and Jack pins his head to the ground with a ferocity that he didn’t know he had, using his left hand to grab 16’s left forearm and twist it up behind his back -

He hasn’t been sparring with Gabriel for nearly three years now for nothing.

78 is wrestling the gun from 16’s other hand and there’s shouting and Jack’s shouting and behind them the rest of the cell block is exploding with yelling and cheers - 16 is shaking furiously to try and get Jack off of him, but Jack digs his fingers into 16’s scalp and twists at the short strands of hair, pulling him up before smacking his head back down and 16 howls in pain -

“GOT IT,” 78 screams as he pulls the gun into his arms and Jack shouts at him, “MOVE, GET THE KEY -”

78 bolts to the cell door as Jack rolls to the right, dragging 16 along with him across the dull, concrete floor before he gets into a looser position -

And then he fucking hurls 16 across the metal foot of his bottom cot.

“OOFMPH,” 16 chokes out as the air leaves his lungs - Jack could have gone for his throat instead, but he’s not _that_ sleep-deprived -

Or that cruel -

So he just smashes him forward across the metal railing at stomach-level, and fuck, it still acts like a baseball bat to the gut and 16 gasps and wheezes against the railing as Jack releases him and sprints the three feet to the cell door -

16 sputters and is skidding after him -

A hand grabs his ankle and Jack is falling forward -

The rifle fires and the hand releases from his foot as 16 screams, “OH FUCK, HOLY SHIT -”

Jack bolts across the threshold of the cell door and grips the bars as 78 shouts, “HURRY -”

Jack slams the cell door shut -

It locks automatically.

Jack and 78 immediately rush away as 16 lunges at them, throwing his hands through the bars to grab at them and 78 waves the barrel of the rifle towards him, tuttering, “Nuh-uh, fucker.”

Jack takes a second to breathe -

Inhale-exhale

One-two

Inhale-exhale

Three-four

Before he whips around to the cell door behind them.

82 and 83 are standing there, and they gawk at him as he approaches their holding, gesturing to 78, muttering, “Key.”

He breathes heavy in the silence and -

“...Key, please,” Jack mutters to him with a little more force, glancing over his shoulder to 78 who stares at him with a stunned look.

“...You’re serious,” 78 whispers with a mix of reverence and horror, and Jack mutters, “Of course, I’m fucking serious.  Did you think I was gonna go back on that?”

“Dude, I thought you were fucking _joking_ -” 78 gasps at him, “ - You fucking asked all of us to ‘go Spiderman’ and I thought you had fucking lost it, dude - there was no way that was supposed to work.”

“The point,” Jack seethes, “Is that _all_ of us did it.  Everyone here pulled that little stunt and they fucking _sold_ it, including these guys.  So I’m doing what I said and letting them out.”

“...No way,” 78 mutters to him darkly and Jack glares, saying again, “Please give me the key, Adrien.”

“There are twenty-one _more guards_ in his group,” 78 snaps at him, striding right up to his space, “And they will be here in a minute when he doesn’t return -”

“That is why we need to be FAST, Adrien,” Jack shouts at him, before gesturing to the door leading to the rest of the “prison” facility, “You have the gun, you can fucking go, you’ll be the only one to stand a chance, but, please, for fuck’s sake, _give me the key_.”

Adrien stares at him hard and Jack thinks he might just leave -

A dark hand snaps out with the very big, very obvious key in it.

Jack accepts it, sighing, “Thank you.”

“...You fucking suck at chemistry.”

Jack squints at him, muttering, “ _Qué?_ ”  Adrien gives him a twisted smirk, saying, “But I wouldn’t have passed Spanish without your help so fuck it, we either pass or fail this together, Jack.”

Jack smirks back -

“ARE YOU GONNA KISS OR GET US OUT OF HERE.” 82 shouts at them from behind and Jack whirls around, taunting him, “Between all the talk about sucking dicks and kissing men, I’m beginning to think you want to see me do something.”

“FUCK OFF, 76,” 82 hisses but Jack just slots the key into the cell door’s lock, clicking it open.  83 jerks the door to the side and the two of them step out into the hallway.  Jack gestures to Adrien, saying, “You two are gonna help him as best you can - that goes for everyone,” he shouts to the rest of the hall, “I get your door open, you join the ranks!  We all pass or fail together!”

Jack slides himself over to the next cell as the three others square up towards the door -

There’s shouting from down in the facility -

Jack grins as he puts the key in the next lock.

He’s not tired anymore.

\---------

_This is my world  
This is my world_

\---------

**Ciento Veinte y Siete: Outside the Box**

August 5, 2045: 0542 - in the mess hall of the SEP facility in Boise National Forest, Idaho

Gabriel yawns widely and obnoxiously as he plops his tray of slop on the table and slumps onto the bench half-hearted.

“...You always know how to make an entrance,” 128 - his ex-cellmate Louisa - says dryly as she looks up from across the table.  Gabriel flicks a lazy hand at her, mumbling, “Fuck off.  It’s too early for me to be the hottest thing since sliced bread.”

“Sounds like someone didn’t get enough sleep last night,” Louisa retorts and Gabriel bites into the apple, mumbling through the crunch, “Actually, I slept pretty good.  That’s probably why I’m so tired.”

“I - how does - you know what, I just won’t ask,” Louisa sighs as 129 - Carlos - and 131 - Jamie - join them at the table.  Jamie chuckles, “Let Gabriel keep his mystique, okay.”

“Someone has to be the cool badass around here,” Gabriel nods and Carlos smirks at him, “Pretty sure that doesn’t go to the guy who can hardly stay awake at 5 am.”

“ _Pendejo_ , I can sleep and wake at the drop of a hat - AH,” Gabriel says before ending the sentence with another long, obnoxious yawn.  Carlos raises an eyebrow as Louisa mutters, “Convincing.”

“This place needs coffee,” Gabriel grumbles and they all kinda nod vaguely along to that, as Jamie mutters, “It probably fucks with our injections or something.”

“Is that why they keep giving us canned tuna?” Louisa sighs, and Gabriel wrinkles his nose slightly, mumbling, “Tuna has fucking high levels of mercury too, like, what the fuck are they feeding us.”

Louisa rolls her eyes as Jamie laughs, “Dude, you get injections of shit you don’t even know and you’re worried about trace mercury in fish?”

“Buddy, I grew up on some of the best sushi outside of fucking Japan itself,” Gabriel sighs wistfully - _fuck_ , sushi sounds _amazing_ right now...or dim sum...or his guilty pleasure of a breakfast burrito (“It’s not real Mexican food!” he can fucking hear his sister say)...or god, crepes -

Jack couldn’t cook for shit -

But he could make surprisingly good crepes.

 _Fuck_ , Gabriel misses sugar.

And, yeah, _okay_ , he also misses sly, smug smiles made of spun sugar and honey and the soft, playful threat of thunderstorms.

It sounds fucking pathetic because it’s only been three days -

But he misses Jack.

He’s completely, 100% totally bent for Jack.  Completely, 100% totally fucked.

He’s fucking _weak_.

Because if someone offered Gabriel the option of a breakfast burrito _right now_ and seeing Jack in four days when the simulation is done, or the option to see Jack _right now_ and never eat a breakfast burrito ever again.

Well…

He could probably live without breakfast burritos.

...Probably.

They’re not real Mexican food anyways.

“I like my fish raw and still swimming, okay,” Gabriel huffs and Louisa opens her mouth to begin to retort when -

The massive electronic screen behind her begins to change.

Immediately, Gabriel has his tray shoved aside and he’s whipping out a small notebook with a pen as Jamie beside him nods up to the screen, saying, “Looks like more people got out.”  Louisa and Carlos turn slightly to watch as the rankings - thin strips of [Candidate Number: Name] start to reorder themselves.

Gabriel flips open his notes to the last page where he wrote the final rankings for yesterday right before he fucked off to his bunk - he draws in a line and adds the date with a rough time estimate -

“Jesus, _hombre_ , you’re obsessed,” Carlos mutters to him as Gabriel flicks his eyes to the screen.

“Does winning matter that much to you?” Louisa asks as the 125 remaining numbers and names beginning to reslot -

  1. [127: Gabriel Reyes] - +/-0
  2. [56: Fred Gomez] - +/-0
  3. [04: Annita Alexeev] - +/-0



“What?  No,” Gabriel mutters distractedly as he watches - _no changes from yesterday so far_ -

  1. [33: Henry Charleston] - +/-0
  2. [118: Mari Okimura] - +/-0
  3. [99: Luis Norris] - +/-0



“It’s not about winning,” Gabriel says to them, his voice growing distant and unreachable -

He’s miserable at trying to explain his thought processes and ideas to other people - Jack has always been the better communicator. Gabriel might have the better ideas, but even he knows they mean fuckall if he can’t actually express them properly.  

  1. [21: Wu Fei-long] - +/-0



Gabriel could know how to conquer the world, but he wouldn’t actually be able to do it because he would never be able to get an army to follow him.

But Jack -

Jack seems to perfectly understand what Gabriel is thinking - and Gabriel for Jack as well - and Jack -

  1. [63: Daniel Ivanov] - +/-0



Jack is _exactly_ the kind of guy to convince an army to help Gabriel conquer the world.

“It’s not about winning,” Gabriel mumbles again -

  1. [147: Mary Yuen] - +/-0



“After all, how can you win the game when you don’t even know the rules?”

The three of them stare at him with stunned expressions as Gabriel grins fiercely, viciously, _victoriously_ :

“You gotta know how to play the game first.”

  1. [76: John Morrison] - +24



_...I knew you could do it, Jack._

“TWENTY-FOUR SLOTS?” Jamie shouts as a commotion begins from some of the other candidates.  Carlos’ jaw falls slack as Louisa squints hard at the board.

“What - how - how did he even DO that?” Carlos mutters, and Gabriel continues to smirk as he starts writing the new scores down, saying, “That’s the thing, _amigo_ \- I have no fucking idea what he did.  But the bosses sure liked it.”

“People haven’t been making those kinds of rank changes since the first two months,” Louisa murmurs and Gabriel grins wider, “I know, right?  Fucking crazy what happens when you push someone hard enough.”

“Aren’t you like...best friends with him?” Jamie asks and Gabriel grumbles, “I fucking better be - I followed him into this program.”

“...Wait what?” Louisa asks, “You weren’t asked to join?”

“Oh, no, I was - I just wasn’t going to,” Gabriel explains as he continues to jot down names and numbers, “Fuck, dude, this shit sounded like every god damn bad comic book superhero backstory - why the fuck would I want to put myself through this shit willingly?”

“...For the money?” Carlos asks and Gabriel shrugs, “I got eight scholarships to West Point.  And West Point is already paid to begin with.”

“...What the fuck are you doing _here_?” Jamie demands, and Gabriel jabs his pen towards the tenth spot on the screen, saying, “Ask him when he shows up.”

“Jesus Christ,” Louisa sighs, “I’m pretty sure this program is just creating supervillains.  ‘Break out of jail’ - that kid just went up twenty-four slots breaking out of jail.”

“He killed someone,” Carlos mutters, “He had to.  They’d totally give out more points for killing someone, you just know they would.”

Loud cheers erupt from the area just outside the mess hall and Gabriel slaps his notebook shut, grinning as he slides it back into his sweatpants’ pocket, “We should go greet the valiant hero.”

The four of them leave their spots and join the small but growing crowd of mixed “escapees” and “guards” by the mess hall doors, and Gabriel has to stand on his tiptoes to see over them.

His eyes scan the new group entering in from the other side of the hall and he almost does a double-take -

“How many are there?” Louisa asks - she can’t see over the crowd and Gabriel mutters, “...That can’t be fucking right.”

_...holy shit._

“What?”

“How many people are in 76-100 now?”

_...Now fucking way._

“Uh...nineteen?  Twenty?” Jamie offers, also trying to look over the crowd, “Fuck, they all keep moving, I gotta recount -”

“I…” Gabriel mutters as a sudden surge of warmth and thrill flood into him, “I got nineteen.”

_Holy SHIT, Jack.  Pinche mierda._

“...Same here,” says Carlos, “Wait hang on - there’s someone leaning on that guy in the back -”

“IS THAT 16??” Jamie asks loudly, and Gabriel nearly falls into the person in front of him, snarling, “WHAT?”

“Dude, that is _totally_ 16 - how in the fuck -”

“Did they bring back a GUARD?” Louisa hisses beside him and Gabriel just openly gawks as some of the 76-100 group lead 16 - still dressed in his lightweight armor - off down a different hall and -

“Alright, everyone,” a rumbling voice shouts over all of them, “Let them get through - I said, to back the fuck up!”

The crowd disperses a little as the small, petite general - her long dark hair flowing behind her - as she strides through the candidates to the newcomers, shoving some of the others aside.  Behind her, several “real soldiers” behind to shepherd the candidates into side halls and back into the mess hall.

Gabriel gets one last glance at her as she pulls aside a tall, ragged looking blonde kid -

He smiles brightly at her, radiating warmth and light like the sun’s reflection on the ocean, his smile made of spun sugar and honey and the thrill of static in the air before a thunderstorm -

Before Gabriel heads back into the mess hall, grinning like a damn idiot.

He’s totally fucked.

But he knew that the moment Jack begged him to join SEP.

\---------

 _My world!_  
_Oh, you took a wrong turn!_  
_Now you're stuck in my world!_  
_Trust me, this gonna hurt!_  
_Fire it up, and watch it burn!_  
_This is my world!_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish Translations:
> 
> \- Pinche mierda: fucking shit  
> \- Pendejo: asshole  
> \- Jack: “Pinche mierda, Dios mio, quiero que me cojas.”: "Fucking shit, My God, I want you to fuck me."  
> \- And joder, qué chingados, it showed.: And fuck, what the fuck, it showed.
> 
> \---------
> 
> Notes: 
> 
> Listen, Gabriel, I'd give up a lot of things for Jack Morrison, but breakfast burritos? Mmm, not sure on that one, buddy.


	2. How We Were Made Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please
> 
> For the love of all that is holy
> 
> Please listen to this song:
> 
> We Move Easy - Welshly Arms (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFVx49xCWQ8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit:
> 
> YALL I AM GOING TO FUCKIN CRY (NSFW link)
> 
> https://twitter.com/SiIent_Dreams/status/825164311081390080
> 
> PLEASE HOLY SHIT
> 
> I DON'T HAVE A TWITTER
> 
> I MIGHT NEED TO MAKE AN ACCOUNT
> 
> PLEASE IF YOU HAVE A TWITTER GO SUPPORT HANJI OR IF YOU HAVE A TUMBLR, GO FOLLOW INFINITE-ATMOSPHERE OH MY GOD I HAVE TEARS END ME
> 
> Seriously, if anyone ever wants to draw anything I write, PLEASE FUCKING DO, OH MY GOD, THIS IS SO UNREAL. THANK YOU EVERYONE

**76: The Trees in the Wind**

August 5, 2045: 1406 - in the dorm hall of the SEP facility in Boise National Forest, Idaho

 

Jack wakes up without the alarm.

For a second, panic consumes him as his eyes _don’t_ actually see the boring, dull concrete of the cell but he exhales with relief when he processes what he’s seeing - he’s in his normal bunk room, in his small but _wonderfully comfortable_ bed, stiff, hard springs beneath him feeling like lying on the world’s worst cloud.  There’s his supply trunk at the foot of his bed, his desk directly to his left, positioned against the wall by the head of the bed.  On the other half of the room, nearly perfectly mirroring his side, is Adrien’s half, complete with long, meager bed, cheap desk, supply trunk, the works.  In between their beds, hanging over their desks, is the center window.

It lets in shadowy, green-filtered sunlight from inbetween the trees outside and Jack -

Jack sighs with contentment.

His memories of the last six or seven hours are hazy - he’d gotten three or four cell doors open before eight of the 1-25 group had shown up, all dressed in the light armor and carrying the rubber bullet guns - the fighting had started, with Adrien firing off rounds and 82 tackling someone and 83 punching at someone else and there had been screaming and shouting, but Jack had ignored it all -

He’d just run.

He didn’t even know how he’d done it - Jack is a long-distance runner, not really much of a short-sprinter - but somehow he’d gone down the first side of the cell block in record time, unlocking door after door before working his way back up the other side as more and more of the 76-100 group jumped into the fray -

Their biggest mistake had been not sending their entire team in.

Even without 16, the remaining 1-25 group had them just marginally outnumbered twenty-one to the 76-100 group’s nineteen, but they had assumed that their rifles and armor would be enough to protect the eight back up members they had sent and well -

Sometimes it’s just better to stay grouped up.

As the 76-100 group quickly showed,

There’s strength in numbers.

Sure, the rubber bullets stung _like a motherfucker_ \- Jack got hit a few times in his legs and once in his shoulder and he’s pretty sure Adrien and some of the others had several cracked ribs - but at six months into the Supersoldier Enhancement Program -

They were finally starting to look-feel-act like supersoldiers.

Even during the fight, Jack was dimly aware of how the bullets did not hurt as much as they probably should have, at how his reaction times seemed quicker than usual despite his lack of sleep, at how his punches and grapples seemed to land harder-better-faster-stronger, at how he had been able to outmaneuver two of them at once while rallying his numbers to him -

_Group up!_

How Adrien and 82 had swooped to his side almost immediately, how 96 and 99 had flanked to their left to jointly pin down 14, how 83 had gotten 02 in a headlock and 93 had thrown fists at him, how 100 grabbed dropped rifles and started passing them out - how she’d given one to Jack _first_ , Jack before anyone else - how Jack had started screaming at them to get the lower numbers isolated - “ _PUT THEM IN THE CELLS, SHUT THE DOORS”_ -

How - one by one - the guards got locked into dull, concrete boxes.

_Fall in here!_

They had looked bad, his numbers - many of them were bleeding, some of them _absolutely_ had cracked ribs, several had black eyes forming, 84 was bleeding heavily from his mouth - but all of them -

 _All of them were there_.

Jack remembers feeling a small burst of pride at his little ragtag band of shitheads - they looked nothing like the superhuman soldiers they were supposed to be becoming, but every growth spurt is painful, every growth spurt is a process -

And even if they looked like complete shit -

Sloppy, messy, exhausted, _vicious_ grins plastered on their faces -

Their eyes lit with a strange, excessive energy -

They acted like supersoldiers.

They felt like supersoldiers.

Jack barely recalls the words he used - something like, “You four with the guns take point, but us other four will hold back - we gotta keep some of these guns a surprise” - as he started organizing them into small clusters into the outer hall - “everyone stays with their cellmate, never let them get you alone, safety in numbers, we all pass or fail together” - when a hard, broken moan from his own cell had caught his attention -

16 was vomiting up blood.

... _a lot_ of blood.

...It retrospect it is pretty stupid that he’d even opened the cell door again.

Adrien had shouted at him to stop fucking around, the doctors are right there, they’ll get him out, c’mon Jack, don’t be this stupid - but Jack remembers how hard he’d crunched 16 against the foot of his cell cot, how he’s pretty sure he hadn’t just cracked one of 16’s ribs, but probably broken one, how even though the doctors are probably watching them all right now and already sending out some medics - Jack can’t -

Jack can’t just leave him behind -

Not when his pain is Jack’s fault.

Even if they were on opposite sides -

Even if they had to fight each other -

After all -

They’re all soldiers in this.

Jack remembers pulling 16’s arm over his shoulders as 16 cries and more blood pours from his mouth, how 16 looks at him with anger and hurt and distrust but how they limp out of the cell together as Adrien shakes his head, muttering how Jack is so _stupid_ , this is _so dumb_ , so _naive_ -

But suddenly 82 is on the other side of 16 and he slings 16’s other arm around his shoulder and grunts, “Get in your spot, 76, I got him -”

Jack gave him a bright grin and rushed back to the middle, lifting his rifle, shouting at his numbers:

_“Press the attack!  Push them back!  Keep your heads covered and go!”_

They had barreled down the hall - it’s long and sweeping and curving, he’s pretty sure they’re in some part of the last maze the directors had set up and there are loud footsteps coming from the other end but the four on point start firing and Jack knows they could run out of ammo -

He gestures to Adrien and 96 and they nods and they flank out to the left while Jack nudges 83 and the two of them flank right and 99 joins them and they’re sweeping up the sides as the four on point distract the ten lower numbers firing on them -

And like a wave -

The 76-100’s swoop around them, moving hard and fast and _filled_ with the energy needed to get out, and when they crash in on them, it hits like a tsunami, bodies flooding in against each other as they crush them inwards - guns are wrestled from hands, punches are thrown, there’s shouting and screaming and the sickening crunch of hands on bones - in an effort to save rubber bullets, Jack uses the rifle like a battering ram, smashing it against fists and heads and -

It feels so _good_ -

It feels so _right_ -

It feels so _perfect_ -

He wasn’t born great.  He wasn’t born with talent like Gabriel, he wasn’t born with hard intellect or sharp wit, he wasn’t born ready to swing and fight -

He was made.

He was made under wide blue skies, in dilapidated homes, in quiet dull concrete moments in the shadows, on cold crisp morning runs, in drills and push ups, in Spanish and Stats classes, in snowball fights and terrible jokes and deep resounding laughter, in miserable injections and sleepless nights in cold dull concrete cells, in soft whispers telling him to think _harder_ , think _better_ , think _faster, c’mon Jack, you can do this, pendejo, c’mon boy scout, get this_ -

 _I’m with you_ -

He was made inside the box.

He was made to break the box.

They had crushed the guards.

They broke the box.

He barely remembers rushing the final stretch to the main hall, how they had all gasped and struggled to breath, how Adrien had started laughing hysterically, how the others had joined in, how Jack had slumped the rifle on his shoulder and thrown his head to the side and gasped and laughed in pain and sheer thrilling joy -

They had walked into the hallway connected to the main facility and been shocked when the groups of the other candidates - earlier escapees and some guards “off duty” - poured out of the mess hall, cheering wildly and loudly for them and Jack had been bewildered by the suddenness of people smacking him on the back or giving him high fives or even -

The general had pulled shoved them out of the way and pulled him aside.  He hardly remembers what they talked about - his idea, how it was implemented, how did he get the others out, how had they prepared to fight against a group with better numbers, better ammo, better defense and Jack could only half answer those questions because he _hadn’t_ thought about the rush outside, just that he knew they could only do it together -

“Strength in numbers,” he said to her with a shrug.

Then he’d been allowed to leave and, after just straight up handing the _commanding general of the United States’ Supersoldier Enhancement Program_ his fucking fake rifle -

In the present, Jack groans at remembering how his tired, exhausted ass had just held out the gun to her, the look of shock in her eyes, and then the chuckling smirk as she had taken it from him before telling him to go clean up and get some rest, the doctors might want to check him first too -

He’d gone to the med bay where the rest of his number group was waiting, they had ushered him to the front of the line even though Jack had protested about 84’s mouth, they should really look at Adrien’s ribs - they took a sample of his blood and slapped a bunch of monitoring wires on him, and pulled data from the smartreader on his wrist and asked a bunch of exhausting questions:

\- “How do you feel?” “Tired.”  - “What hurts?” “Everything.”  - “When did you last throw up?” “Sometime last night or something.”  - “Where were you hit?” “Everywhere.”  - “What made you think of this type of attack?” “People started talking about comic book heroes.”  - “...What?” “You know, Captain America and Hulk and shit.”  - “...Can you explain that more clearly?” “...No, not really.  I just told people to try Spidermanning it and being quiet and *loose shrug* Can I leave?”  - “We have a few more questions for you.” “You know I’m gonna fall asleep any second, right?”

Eventually, after what felt like hours but had probably only been a few minutes, they had pushed him towards the showers, where the lukewarm water felt like a fucking dream come true and Jack had almost fallen asleep on his feet until Adrien had shouted at him from another stall “Don’t pass out, Jack - I told you to try and sleep more.” and then Jack had toweled off, pulled on a clean set of sweats in the bins of spare clothes they left out for everyone, shuffled off to his room, and

 _Passed the fuck out_.

Jack groans again, rolling over on his side - everything is sore and stiff and for some reason it feels _fucking great_ \- and he glances at the clock on his desk.  1416 - 2:16 p.m. - its digital face reads.  He’s only slept for five or six hours and it doesn’t feel like _nearly_ enough to make up for the misery of the last three days but -

He’s got enough energy now.

Every cell in his body is _burning_ with recharged electricity, with vibrant, heated _need_ , and he feels it pulling at his consciousness with dark, liquid urgency, whispering to him in a low, rumbling chuckle and smug smirks and dark eyes that he hasn’t seen in three days -

_Not bad, Jack._

_I’m with you -_

_Just win, baby._

Jack blinks lazily at the clock a few more times, before he bites his lower lip, and then forces himself to sit up.

He’s got _more_ than enough energy now.

He knows he probably still looks like shit - there’s a bruise forming on his left cheek and his legs and shoulder where he got hit with the rubber bullets are probably already bright, ugly red marks, he can practically feel them turning purple as he stands and stretches, hissing at how _delicious_ the burn feels in his side and his lower back and god, that mattress had been stiff as fuck but every part of him aches -

Every part of him _wants_ -

He wants -

He wants -

Jack runs a slow hand through his unruly hair - he’s not supposed to sleep with wet hair, it gives him _the worst_ bedhead, his friends at West Point laughed at him the first time he’d shown up with bedhead (once his shaved hair had started growing back out to permitted lengths), but Jack -

Jack has too much energy to care.

Jack has _too much need_ \- a deep, aching, _burning_ need - to care.

Jack sighs and pushes himself to the door of the dorm room, choosing to forego his sneakers for just bare feet before sliding the door open and stepping into the hall.

There are people milling about - mostly people from his number group, since they were all out now, and several of them give him broad smiles and claps on the back and -

“You going to get lunch, 76?”

“Mmm,” he mumbles back noncommittally - _because he’s gonna go get_ somethin’, _alright_ \- as he works his way down the corridor and towards the mess hall.  87 laughs at him, “Got somewhere to be, kid?  We all thought you were gonna sleep forever.”

“Fuck it, dude, he deserves it,” 94 says, “I still can’t believe that crazyass idea _worked_.”

“You and me both,” Jack sighs as the small group enters into the side of the mess hall.  It’s a big, open room, built like any standard, generic cafeteria type place - lots of long tables and big windows to the low pine trees and high desert mountain scrubs surrounding their base, wide blue skies framing the background.

Jack wouldn’t call this home.

He doubts he could ever call this place home.

But for first time in six months

Jack can really appreciate the sheer, overwhelming beauty of this moment.

Soft, shivery small talk and light laughter, the sounds of forks clicking on plates, warm, green-tinted sunlight drifting into the room with small motes of light and dust, the gentle hum of some air filter system running steadily in the background, the picturesque trees spreading low across the roaming mountains, blending right into rolling, fluffy clouds -

Jack shuts his eyes, that aching energy wrapping around his heart, pushing his pulse, and he wants -

Inhale-exhale

One-two

Inhale-exhale

Three-four

Jack reopens his eyes, and sets off to one table where he knows he can find what he needs.

Or at least, get pointed in the right direction.

There’s only two people in this section of the table - 129, the guy, and 128, at least that’s who he thinks she is, he’s not certain on that - and they munch away at their lunch, chattering pleasantly.  129 seems more accepting of the food than 128 at the moment, and she watches him with mild disgust:

“...Could you at least swallow your food before you talk, Carlos?” she asks and 129 - Carlos - rolls his shoulders saying, “Everyone else does it.”

“That doesn’t mean I enjoy it when they do it either, jackass -”

“Hey,” Jack says to them and for some reason 87 and 94 are still with him - suddenly, even Adrien is there as is 82 and a small group is slowly gathering around them, _qué chingados_ -

“OH shit,” Carlos says, nearly choking on his food and 128 looks at him with mild surprise saying, “If it isn’t Rank Ten.”

“Mister Twenty-Four Slots himself!” Carlos wheezes and Jack looks between the two of them with vague confusion before asking, “I’m sorry?”

“ _Dude_ ,” Adrien whispers to him loudly, “Have you not seen the fucking score??”

“Huh?” Jack says dumbly before lifting his eyes to the scoreboard and -

 _PINCHE JODER, NO MAMES, QUE CHINGADOS_ , HOLY _SHIT_ -

  1. [76: John Morrison] - +24



Jack’s jaw drops and suddenly Adrien and 82 are _howling_ with laughter and Carlos is choking on more food and 128 is smirking at him as 87 smacks his back, saying, “Good job, Captain America.”

“No, that’s not - no fucking way -” Jack is muttering as 82 cries, wiping tears from his bruised face, “76, the look on your _fucking face_ -” before he doubles over in laughter again and Adrien is gripping his shoulder and shaking him slightly and Jack hisses because that _stings so fucking good_ -

His aching, needing energy _throbs_ as he looks at the rankings and feels the press of a hand into his sore, bruised body and -

It doesn’t belong to who he wants to be holding him.

“Where is Gabriel?”

The chortling and choking dies down as everyone looks at Jack, but Jack is just staring at the scoreboard, eyes dark and as clouded as thunderheads and Carlos whispers, “Oh _fuck_ ,” as 128 says loudly, “I think he went off to the gym -”

“Nope,” says a newcomer as he slots himself onto the table with a tray of food, his dark hair still wet and dripping slightly, “Gabriel was just getting into the showers as I was leaving.”  The tall, lanky kid bites into his sandwich before glancing up Jack and also nearly chokes on his food, muttering with a muffled shout, “Oh _fuck_ , Rank Ten is here!  Holy _shit_.”

“The showers?  Got it, thanks - what’s your name?” Jack asks him and he hacks and coughs, “Jamie.  Jamie Royce.  Number 131.  Holy _shit_ , dude - what the fuck did you _do_ this morning?  Twenty-four spots??”

“Yeah, this is news to me too,” Jack mumbles before looking at 128 intensely, “And you?”

“Uh,” she says uncertainly, “Louisa Ricardo, 128.  You’re...John?”

“No.”

Carlos and Louisa share a skeptical glance before he corrects them with a steel-edged, smirking tone:

“It’s Jack.  I fucking hate the name John.”

“...Doesn’t Gabriel call you Juan?” Jamie asks hesitantly and Jack chuckles darkly, words dripping with want, with _ache_ , “Yeah.  I fucking hate that.  What an asshole.  I gotta tell him what a fucking asshole he is.”

“...That is not where I was expecting this conversation to go,” Adrien mutters to 82 who half-shrugs and then Jack turns to leave and there’s some more soft swearing and shuffling behind him as the three people at the table get up to hastily join the small crowd, but Jack is practically _striding_ across the mess hall and people are struggling to keep up -

“Hey,” Louisa calls to him, rushing to catch up, “Hey - is it true that you were the one who convinced Gabriel to join?”

“Wait, seriously?” 87 asks incredulously, and 94 scoffs, “No way -”

“Yeah.”

The group kinda of staggers and gawks but Jack just keeps pushing forward, keeps pressing his attack, the energy inside him is _aching_ and _heavy_ with want, he wants he wants he wants -

“...Uh,” Jamie asks as the group leaves the mess hall and enters the main hallway, and Jack immediately heads to the gym and the main showers on the right.  Jamie stammers as they all rush to follow him, “How in the fuck did you convince him?”

_“I want to achieve greatness with you!”_

He remembers that broad figure stopping in its tracks as the words left Jack’s mouth -

Without Jack knowing it, without Jack meaning to.

He remembers the dark pause, steep and heavy in the cold, dull concrete office room in the administrative building in West Point, as Gabriel glanced back at him with a deep, mistrusting look.

_“ - I would give anything to help you achieve that greatness -”_

He had not been born great.

Gabriel had not been born great.

But together -

_“...I’m with you.”_

They would be made great.

_“Estoy contigo.”_

Together -

They would make greatness.

_“Y yo, contigo.”_

Gabriel had the strength of mind, the sheer tactical genius, and the intensity of a raw apocalypse to change the world.

And Jack would give everything to see that.

Even give up every home he’d known, cut every comfort from his life, strap himself into beds, inject himself with hormones and chemicals and poisons, lock himself inside the dull concrete cell -

 _Fucking break out of the cell with only bare fists and ragged strength and sheer intensity of will and pure numbers_ -

Just to see Gabriel reach his greatest potential.

Jack flashes a wide, smug grin at Jamie, saying proudly, “I can convince Gabriel to do anything.”

“Well now, that’s just a straight fucking lie, isn’t it?”

Jack and his entire posse (? clique? What is going on with this _crowd_?) skid to a stop as a figure with a towel over its head steps out of the bathroom.  He’s got the SEP sweats on, and the hungering, aching need in Jack delights at how they hug his curves _just right_ \- they don’t reveal anything _too_ tantalizing, but they show off that perfect ass and those wonderful thighs.  He’s got a thin, cheap, mass-produced white t-shirt on, showing the swell of his shoulders, how his back is starting to fill out _perfectly_ , and the deep rich color of his arms seems magnified as some extra drops of water roll off his shoulders because Gabriel is always too impatient to dry himself off properly.

Jack thanks whatever force in the universe that had compelled Gabriel to become his friend for the entirety of their friendship, for three years of slow build-up and ruthless teasing and relentless flirting and Jack being oblivious for the first two years - Jack thanks that force for delivering him to this moment.

Dark, thick hands squeeze at the towel and then shuffle it across the unseen head as the entire group seems to just...wait and watch.

Jack folds his arms, huffing, “It’s not a lie and you know it.”

“Jackass, you could never get me to try that abomination of a monstrosity you called nachos,” Gabriel growls before ripping the towel off his head, and - holy _fuck_ , he had started growing a beard, holy _hell_ , it only makes him all the more attractive - and Gabriel gives Jack a dark, fierce, mischievous glare that sends all the energy building in Jack straight to his groin.  Gabriel’s gaze loses some of its intensity as he mutters vaguely, “Who puts fucking hot cheetos and gravy on nachos with beans and salsa and that fake cheese shit, what the fuck is wrong with you.”

“It’s not like it’s real Mexican food,” Jack retorts sharply, and Gabriel sighs with defeat, “Fuck, dude, that’s not even the god damn point.”

Jack looks at Gabriel.

Gabriel looks at Jack.

Gabriel suddenly grins brilliantly, radiantly, and Jack feels sunshine seep back into his soul, feels everything bursting with want and need and joy.  Gabriel holds out his fist towards Jack, saying proudly, “I knew you could do it.”

_[We’re like the trees in the wind,_

_Where the water bends.]_

Jack sighs.

Inhale-exhale

One-two

Inhale-exhale

Three-four

“...Yeah,” Jack murmurs happily, as he takes the last few steps to close the gap between him and Gabriel, “Yeah, I knew I could too.”

He lets the deep, roiling, aching energy consume him whole.

_[We move easy.]_

Jack shoves Gabriel’s fist aside and for a half-second Gabriel looks mildly confused at his bizarre behavior until Jack’s fist balls in Gabriel’s shirt and he snarls into that bewildered, charming, roguish face:

“And now I can do this too.”

Jack kisses him -

\---------

_We’re like trees in the wind,_

_Where the water bends._

_We move easy._

_Ohhh-oh, you please me -_

\---------

**127: Where the Water Bends**

August 5, 2045: 1426 - in the dorm hall of the SEP facility in Boise National Forest, Idaho

 

Gabriel has wanted this moment for two years.

He’s never told Jack how much he’s wanted this, or that he’s wanted it for that long.  He could never do that to him, not when Jack used to talk about how wonderful his boyfriend “back home” was, even as jealousy and a bitter, bruising crush had consumed him, ripping at him so hard that he’d driven himself to get better, to do better, to become better at everything - boxing, sparring, training, homework, studying, volunteering -

Gabriel had poured his need for Jack into everything else in his life and _flourished_ for it -

So when Jack had broken up with Andrew, Gabriel had almost dropped to his knees in front of him right then and there.

Almost.

Friends had told him to be restrained, to give Jack space, to let him ease out of a four-year relationship at his own pace - even if it was blatantly obvious to the whole world that they laughed too long and too loud at each other, that they were a touch too comfortable around each other, that their playful, twisted teases would often burn right to the edge of inappropriate, that even if they hadn’t tried anything or even _said_ anything - they knew each other more intimately than they should -

Because Gabriel could only struggle to explain things to other people, but Jack -

Without either of them knowing it, without either of them meaning to -

Jack understood Gabriel inside and out.

Out and inside Gabriel understood Jack.

The only thing that had been missing for the last six months, since Jack effectively begged Gabriel to give up his current military trajectory for SEP - effectively give up his West Point academics, his scholarships, his friends, his family in LA, his love of the ocean, his ability to box whenever he wanted, every worldly attachment he possessed -

The only thing that had been missing between them

Was this moment.

Gabriel sighs inside and outside himself.

 _Finally_.

At the sheer force of it, Gabriel almost jerks away in shock, but the kiss is deep and aching and _burns_ with a brilliant, raw heat that causes Gabriel to melt into it and _fuck_ , Jack feels _perfect_ against him, Jack is everything he’d wanted for years and more, Jack is better than that, better than a daydream, and Gabriel lets Jack push him into the warm, sunshine-filled depths of the water of Jack’s soul -

“YOOOOOO,” someone in the crowd shouts behind them as people start whooping and wolf-whistling and cheering - _WHY_ _are there so many fucking people here??_ \- and through only partially-focused, partially lidded eyes, Gabriel sees Jack lift his free hand towards them, middle finger raised as Jack breaks the kisses and Gabriel is stunned to see those normally bright blue eyes murky with dark lust and heavy rainstorms and _fuck_ -

His face is battered and there’s a bruise forming on his left cheek and a small moment of rage bubbles inside Gabriel but it quickly dies when Jack bites his lower lip, smirking at him with raw, unabashed, _powerful_ smugness and _pinche mierda_ -

Gabriel has never wanted something so badly _in his life_.

“Get it, Top Ten!” Gabriel hears Jamie shout and _fuck_ , why is everyone _watching_ them??  Jack just grins over his shoulder at the crowd, saying dryly, “No, you’re mistaken - I’m getting the Top Rank today.”

“Oh, FUCK -”

And then Jack flicks that dark, deadly, _gorgeous_ gaze back to Gabriel and mutters lowly, “Or is it that I’m topping the Top Rank today?”

“ _Oh, pinche joder, qué chingados, no mames_ -” Gabriel sputters because he’s never been able to explain anything eloquently and he can’t explain the fact that Jack being proud and confident and completely in control of himself and everything around him sets Gabriel _on fire_ , sends him burning with a deep, furious need to watch Jack - filled with the confidence and power of a thunderstorm - completely fall apart at Gabriel’s mercy -

“Carlos,” Jack calls out, never breaking eye-contact with Gabriel and shit, he’s pretty sure all of his blood flow is being redirected to his groin and Carlos - _fuck, Carlos is there too??_ \- calls out, “Uh, yeah?”

“You’re Gabriel’s roommate, right?”

“...Uh, yeah - oh god, WAIT -”

“You should probably go find something to do for a couple of hours,” Jack laughs to him and there’s more wolf-whistling and cheers from the small crowd and Gabriel thinks he might be getting hard in front of everyone and _JESUS_ , _Jack_ -

Jack releases his grip on Gabriel’s shirt and, before Gabriel can say anything, links his left arm around Gabriel’s right and - with one last lightning flash of a smile - starts dragging him down the hallway as the crowd shouts and jeers and someone yells, “BE SAFE YOU TWO.”

“Thanks, Adrien,” Jack shouts back but he can’t stop smiling or laughing and Gabriel is just struggling to even find _words_ -

“I fucking - _joder_ \- what the fuck - how in the shit - _pinche mierda_ -” is tumbling out of his mouth and Jack just keeps laughing and beaming at him as bright as a bolt of lightning and god, _god_ , Gabriel is reeling just from everything that happened -

“ _Holy fucking shit, Jack_ -” Gabriel breathes as Jack winds them down several hallways to the 126-150 section - he’s still clutching this stupid towel for fuck’s sake - and Gabriel groans, “That was in front of everyone, oh, Jesus, _fuck me_ -”

“That’s the plan, _pendejo_ ,” Jack chuckles darkly and Gabriel actually feels his cock twitch at the words, at the breathlessness in Jack’s voice, and Jack murmurs against his shoulder - technically, Jack is just short of Gabriel’s height, but Gabriel’s pretty much done growing, all that’s left is to let the injections give him one or two more inches, but Jack’s got another couple of years to keep growing and _fuck_ , Gabriel’s thoughts are churning a mile a minute as Jack murmurs against his shoulder, “I don’t want to fuck you in front of everyone for our first time.  Third or fourth time however -”

“ _Jesus fucking Christ, Jack_ ,” Gabriel groans because the ache, the need inside him is threatening to overwhelm him in the hallway and he doesn’t want to fuck Jack against some poor 126-150 number’s door but _god damn_ , he fucking _will_ if Jack keeps talking like this -

They reach the door marked 127-128 and Jack shoves Gabriel lightly towards the lock pad, muttering, “ _Rápido, Gabriel, por favor, quiero que me cojas_ -”

“HOLY SHIT,” Gabriel shouts mainly to himself as he punches in the keycode and the door slides open, “Holy _fuck_ , I definitely _did not_ teach you that phrase -”

“You like that?  I learned it just for you,” Jack chuckles slyly against him as he pulls Gabriel into the dim room - lit only by dancing half-shadows, half-sunbeams through green-tinted pine trees - those stormcloud eyes flashing dangerous and Gabriel’s cock is _definitely_ getting harder by the second.  Gabriel slaps the lock door button blindly behind him and only miraculously hits it because Jack is pulling himself square up against him and -

Holy shit, these sweatpants leave _nothing_ to the imagination.

Gabriel nearly chokes on his own breath as Jack slides up against him, rubbing his own half-hard dick against Gabriel’s and Gabriel hisses at how good the friction feels and he’s wrapping arms around Jack as Jack pulls at his shirt again, drawing him in for another brilliant, perfect, hot kiss and Gabriel moans against his lips:

“Fuck, Jack, _fuck_ \- I’ve wanted this for _so long_ -”

“I know,” Jack whispers back, nipping at Gabriel’s bottom lip and running some fingers along Gabriel’s light scruff of a beard before he dives back in - before they both dive back in for another warm, melting kiss and Jack grinds against him and Gabriel gasps as Jack bites at his lips playfully.

They half-lean, half-struggle to push each other towards Gabriel’s bed on the left side of the room, with Jack making it extra difficult because the asshole refuses to actually help move, pressing himself harder against Gabriel as if the older candidate will disappear if he lets go, kissing at his lips, his cheeks, his jaw, his neck desperately and _fuck_ , Gabriel moans because Jack scrapes his teeth along the underside of his jaw and that -

That is pretty much when Gabriel loses control of the situation.

Next thing he knows, he’s being pushed backwards onto his bed - _how??_ \- and he watches with amazed lust as Jack looks over him darkly, eyes drinking in the sight of the top candidate laid out before him - legs hanging over the side of the bed, too weak to push himself all the way on.

“I, uh,” Gabriel mutters, suddenly realizing he has never actually asked what Jack’s...preference is, or if he has one, or what - not that Gabriel minds, not all at, Gabriel is always down to fuck and get fucked -

 _Especially_ with Jack.

 _Absolutely_ with Jack.

Holy fucking shit, this is actually gonna happen.

Suddenly, Jack slides his legs on either side of Gabriel’s waist and settles onto his knees, his ass rubbing _wonderfully_ against Gabriel’s aching dick and Gabriel hisses as Jack hums contentedly to himself.

“What - _fuck_ \- what do you wanna - ?” Gabriel asks unhelpfully but Jack -

Jack always seems to know exactly what he’s trying to say.

With another wicked, delicious grin, Jack lowers himself across Gabriel, pressing back against his lips with strong, dark, overwhelming need and Gabriel pulls back into him, reveling in how warm he is, how real, how vivacious he is against him, how perfect he feels -

Jack slides his mouth to Gabriel’s neck, kissing and sucking and working his way up to bite lightly at his ear and Gabriel groans as Jack grinds back on his cock -

_[Press those sweet lips_

_Up to my ear._

_Tell me softly_

_Why you’re still here.]_

In that rolling, rumbling, rainstorm voice, Jack murmurs to him - painful, bittersweet need dripping with every word:

“I want you to fuck me so hard that I won’t walk straight for a week.”

... _Oh holy SHIT_.

_[Put your cold hands_

_All over me._

_Help me wake up_

_From my bad dreams.]_

A soft, slightly cool hand slips beneath the hem of Gabriel’s shirt and runs lightly scratching fingernails over his abs and his stomach muscle clench reflexively over how tantalizingly _good_ they feel and Jack’s breathless voice continues in his ear, in his head:

“I want to feel you every time I have to sit down or stand up.”

 _Ay, pinche mierda_.

Another hand joins its twin on Gabriel’s skin as they push his t-shirt up and Jack grinds back on Gabriel’s throbbing cock and _fuck_ , he’s struggling to keep it together -

“The next time they strap me down for more injections, I want to think about how you held me down.”

_Oh, sweet merciful God -_

Jack hums his boiling ache, dripping molten gold words to Gabriel as his fingers touch everywhere, send small electric thrills through his skin and he can feel Jack’s hard cock press against his stomach, straining against thin, completely unnecessary sweatpants:

“I want you to fuck me so hard I feel it all the way through the next simulation.”

He’s going to break -

His hands dig into Jack’s hips as Jack’s words roll into him like the sweetest summer storm, heavy and dark, filled with spun sugar and honey and hormones and poison Gabriel would gladly trade everything - _everything_ \- to consume:

“I never want to move without the ache of you inside me ever again -”

Gabriel hurls himself upwards, pushing Jack with him, pushing him into a seated position as Gabriel growls into Jack’s neck, kissing and biting furiously, as a gasp breaks out of Jack’s throat and his fingernails break into the skin on Gabriel’s chest and _fuck_ , they sting so _good_ , he’ll give everything to be covered in Jack’s scratches -

Gabriel bites and sucks on Jack’s neck as Jack shudders and groans beneath his lips, as Gabriel’s hands wedge themselves up under Jack’s shirt and Jack is gasping, calling for him:

“ _Quiero sentirte, Gabriel_ -”

 _I want to feel you_ -

“ _Quiero sentirte dentro de mi_.”

_I want to feel you inside of me -_

And Gabriel -

Gabriel will give _everything_ for that.

_[We’re like the trees in the wind,_

_Oh honey, where that water bends.]_

\---------

**76 + 127: We Move Easy**

 

Gabriel presses and bites hard kisses into the column of Jack’s neck as Jack heaves and gasps, loving how Gabriel’s fingers push into his aching, throbbing skin - he’s still riding his high from the fight - the chemicals they’ve pumped into them are _something else,_ holy shit - and he moans when Gabriel’s fingertips climb up the muscles and bruises of his back, at how they sting and spasm with pleasure as dark hands grip him hard.  His own fingers claw at Gabriel’s chest, sliding up to his shoulder, raw and tense and so easy to grab, so easy to cling to -

Gabriel moves up along Jack’s jaw, across his chin, grumbling a throaty moan against Jack’s lips and Jack opens up for him almost immediately, letting Gabriel kiss back into him, hard and melting all at once with burning need as Gabriel’s hands continue that climb up Jack’s back, pulling him down to grind on his cock even as his hands go higher, higher -

“Shirt,” is all Gabriel can manage to groan against Jack’s lips and even with a low haze settling into his thoughts, Jack knows exactly what Gabriel wants, he wants to give it to him, he would give him everything he asks for right now, just for him to continue to press that hard, twitching cock against his ass a little more -

They break apart -

_[We move easy_

_Ohhhh-oh, so freely.]_

Only for a split second to rip Jack’s shirt off in combined effort, their movements fluid fast, but Gabriel stops -

There are bruises forming _everywhere_ -

“... _Qué chingados_??” Gabriel hisses pulling away for a second, and Jack groans softly, “Gabriel, what the fuck, stop -”

“What the fuck did you _do_?” Gabriel growls at him - who the _fuck_ gets to hurt Jack, who the _fuck_ gets to bruise him like this - and Jack -

Jack presses his hands to the sides of Gabriel’s face and pulls that dark, liquid, smoky gaze to his and murmurs as he leans against Gabriel’s lips, “Focus on me, Gabriel - I want you, I want to feel you - I want more -”

And _fuck_ ,

That’s all Gabriel wants too.

Gabriel forces his concerns out of his mind for the moment.

He’ll fuck up the 1-25 group later if he has to.

But Jack is here

Jack is _now_.

Suddenly they’re back together, crashing into each other with bittersweet forcefulness as Jack’s lips push back against Gabriel’s and Gabriel’s back into his, even as Jack’s hands are grabbing fistfuls of Gabriel’s shirt -

He wants him -

He wants to _feel_ him -

Gabriel’s hands roam over Jack’s body, relishing in the clenching and twisting of thick muscles beneath his fingers - at how his temperature seems to flash hot and then cold, lightning and then thunder - and he groans as Jack rises and falls, alternating between rubbing the muscles of his ass against Gabriel’s aching dick and sliding his own cock against Gabriel’s stomach, the soft fabric of the sweatpants are _too much_ and _not enough_ at the same time, Gabriel doesn’t want to feel this cotton shit, he wants -

He wants him -

He wants to _feel_ him -

“Gabriel,” Jack whines against Gabriel’s lips, tugging at his shirt, “Gabriel, _más, necesito más de ti_ -” and a small part of Gabriel growls because he doesn’t want to let go of what has taken him two years to finally obtain, even to take off his own damn shirt, but he _wants_ to feel Jack’s fingernails back in his skin again -

With a sigh, Gabriel pulls away and lets Jack pull his shirt off before he’s back against him and god, it was worth it to be away from him for a few seconds just to now feel the heat and flush of his skin against Gabriel’s, to feel his warmth press against him and -

Gabriel presses back, wrapping his arms hard around Jack and forcing him back down onto his lap, his hands sliding down to Jack’s thighs to force them further apart, force him to really grind against his cock and his fingers press into the ache from the rubber bullets there, causing Jack to moan against his lips:

“Make it rough, Gabriel, make it hard, I won’t break - I want to _feel_ you - _quiero sentirte_ -”

“God _damn_ ,” Gabriel growls back as his hands move back to grip at Jack’s ass, the firm muscles clenching hard under his fingers and they glide back to Jack’s lower back, before sliding under the band of the sweatpants and -

“Holy _shit_ ,” Gabriel breathes against his lips as his eyes go wide and Jack pulls back to grin at him darkly, victoriously, “I went straight from the med bay to the showers then to bed -”

“Jesus _fuck_ , you had nothing on under these in front of fucking _everyone_ ,” Gabriel hisses and Jack loves the shocked tone, the way those hard fingertips dig into the skin of his ass and he smirks, murmuring to him sweetly, “I’ll wear nothing ever again if that’s what you want, Gabi -”

“Do _not_ -” Gabriel chokes out before biting at Jack’s lips again, his dark eyes flashing with a burning _need_ , a deep _ache_ that boils out through his voice and words against Jack’s lips and runs straight to Jack’s throbbing cock - god, he might already be dripping, he wants Gabriel so bad -

“Do _not_ fucking tempt me, _pinche mierda, pendejo,_ ” Gabriel gasps as Jack grinds down on that thick cock again, loving how Gabriel struggles to maintain any sense of composure, any sense of self at the sway and rub of Jack’s hips.  Those dark hands are forcing the band of his sweatpants down, around the curve of his ass, as Gabriel’s right hand slides along it, tugging to the front, pulling it away from Jack’s cock -

Gabriel snaps the sweatpants over Jack’s dick and drinks in the sight - Jack straddling his hips, naked down to his thighs, covered in swelling bruises from whatever happened but also from light scratches of Gabriel’s fingers, his cock hard and erect and _already dripping, holy shit_ , his blue eyes slowly unfocusing and slipping into a dreamy, lusted haze as Gabriel bends back into his body, planting heated kisses across his chest as his hands dig into Jack’s hips and -

“AH,” Jack gasps as Gabriel’s hand, his right one, grips at his aching dick and _god_ , just the touch of that rough, calloused palm against the head of his cock is enough to nearly blind him with pleasure and his fingernails bite into the meat of Gabriel’s shoulders as Gabriel strokes him hard and hot a few times, before growling, “ _Fuck_ -”

“Gabe, _oh shit_ , Gabriel, keep _going_ -” Jack moans, moving a hand to press Gabriel’s head against his neck and he groans into the side of Gabriel’s shaved hair as Gabriel bites onto his clavicle, his hand pumping harder, harder, before slowing a little, relaxing a bit and _fuck_ \- Jack doesn’t want that, he wants to feel him, he wants to cum for him, he wants Gabriel to _wreck_ him over and over and over -

“Need lube,” Gabriel grunts against Jack’s chest, even as his left hand disobeys him and slides into the cleft of Jack’s ass, pressing against the clenching muscles there and _Jesus_ , he needs to slow down, just for a moment, just to get -

Jack’s right hand suddenly snaps at Gabriel’s wrist -

_Qué??_

It pulls Gabriel’s left hand away from his hips and ass, even as Gabriel growls against him for losing that perfect contact, but it pulls Gabriel’s hand up, as Jack shifts back just slightly -

Jack’s hand slides along Gabriel’s until its palm is flat against the back and Jack looks at him with a dark, melting gaze, liquid heat and icy steel all at once, as he presses Gabriel’s first two fingers into his mouth -

The look, the feeling, the wet heat goes straight to Gabriel’s dick.

“Oh...oh holy _shit_ ,” Gabriel gasps as Jack’s wet, burning tongue liberally slicks up the fingers, sucking on them hotly, all the way down to Gabriel’s knuckles, and Jack -

Jack fucking _smirks_ around them, before his eyes flutter shut and he sucks again -

Gabriel’s fingers push into his tongue and Jack moans and hums around them, as they slip about in his mouth, getting them covered, getting them wet and hot and ready - it won’t replace the lube, not fully, they’ll have to get it later, but that’s the whole point - _get it later_ \- not right now, not when Jack needs to feel Gabriel inside him, even his fingers, not when he can feel that burning energy threatening to engulf him again -

He pulls Gabriel’s fingers from his mouth with a wet pop and opens his eyes to give him a deep, wry smile and the lust stirs in Gabriel’s eyes again -

And suddenly he’s pulling Jack against himself as his left hand dives back to that ring of muscles, pressing hard and fast and insistent and Jack moans as both fingers work into him, slicking him up with his own wetness and Jack wraps his right hand back around to Gabriel’s back, clawing into the tense muscles there, sighing, “Yes, Gabriel, _yes_ , just like that, I want to feel you -”

Gabriel’s right hand returns from Jack’s shoulder back to his throbbing cock, where the energy and pressure is building behind it, in his groin, and he feels Gabriel’s hands - both inside and out - stir at the pressure, at the energy, prodding into it from the inside and wrapping around it from the outside.  Gabriel’s fingers slide in further, spreading and stretching him and his eyes water with pleasure as he gasps, “More, Gabriel, further, give me more, make it harder -”

Gabriel’s grip on his aching dick tightens and he strokes Jack, growling against the warmth of his skin, “Where is it, Jack?” as his fingers search inside him, relishing in the deep, slick heat of him, his soldier, _his_ \- he’s going to make Jack come undone, he’s going to make Jack fall apart -

He’s going to do that _several times_ -

“Higher, higher, more, Gabi,” Jack breathes, his voice catching in his throat as Gabriel pushes into him further and Jack’s hips rise, he’s sliding his cock against the hot roughness of Gabriel’s hand and pushing himself back on the wet fingers pushing deeper and deeper inside him, almost there, just a bit higher, he knows this, he wants Gabriel to know this too - he wants to feel him inside him even more -

“Here?” Gabriel asks, pressing into Jack’s muscles and Jack moans - it’s close, he’s so close - but he gasps, “No, more, just a bit more, so close, Gabi,” and Gabriel kisses his neck hard before wedging his fingers in further -

He twists them in hard -

“YES,” Jack cries, digging his fingernails into Gabriel’s skin, his shout rumbling against Gabriel’s head and Gabriel groans at how good the stinging feels, how deep they bite into him, how they drag along his shoulders, and he feels Jack shudder into his right hand, leaking, dripping, as he presses back onto his fingers and up into his hand -

“That’s it, Jack,” Gabriel whispers deep against his skin as Jack rocks his hips back and forth, his eyes alighting with pleasure at how Jack’s whole body rolls into him and onto him, as Gabriel build his pleasure inside and outside, and Gabriel grins as those hips sway up and back down as Jack’s gasps into his scalp give him low, rumbling frisson and Gabriel shivers, “Fuck yourself on me, Jack, let me see you work for it.”

Jack moans and gasps as his hips rise even higher, pushing hard into Gabriel’s hand and grinding back down on those fingers pressed hard into his sweet spot, flooding his body with pleasure, it surges through him in waves, up from his cock and into his spine and up into shivers on his neck, and he’s scrambling against Gabriel’s hot, thick body, whining and crying with his need as the energy in him builds and builds and builds -

“More, Gabriel,” Jack begs him, “Harder, make me cum -”  And Gabriel takes that as his cue to pump his hand more, to put an even deeper pressure on it as he pushes his fingers in even deeper and Jack is practically sobbing and shaking, both his hands are fucking Jack inside and outside and god, _god_ , he might make Jack cum just from his hands, _holy shit_ -

And even though his own dick is hard and aching and _desperate_ for that wet, clenching heat to surround him -

Even though he is not a patient man -

Even though he has waited for years for this moment and _fuck_ -

Gabriel Reyes is more than happy to delay his own desires to watch Jack Morrison fall to pieces in his hands

To feel that immense self-satisfaction that the wrecked, hazy, utterly gorgeous look of devastation and overwhelming pleasure on Jack’s face and in his cracking voice was caused by him, was made by him, was _achieved_ by him.

He’s going to make it as long and drawn out and as miserably _wonderful_ for Jack as he can

Because that is what Gabriel wants.

Jack feels energy and lack of sleep and his unending, aching need for Gabriel, for more of Gabriel - he hasn’t seen him, hasn’t touched him, hasn’t heard him in three days, it’s not enough, he needs more, he needs everything - weave with the pleasure Gabriel is fingerfucking into him and pumping into his cock and his hands grip at Gabriel’s head, scratching deep into that shaved scalp, pushing Gabriel’s face to his chest and he feels hard kisses and bites tease at his muscles there, and he bends over moaning his urgency to the top of Gabriel’s head:

“I’m close, Gabriel, _Gabi, por favor, te quiero_ , keep going, I’m so close -”

God, the intensity of Jack’s voice makes Gabriel’s dick _throb_.

“C’mon, Jack, that’s it, that’s more like it, keep going, keep going,” Gabriel growls as he jerks his hand hard and thrusts into him harder and Jack practically sobs as he clenches down on Gabriel’s fingers and then rolls his hips up, his movements growing sporadic, Gabriel’s struggling just to keep a hold of him but it’s fine, it’s _perfect_ , it’s all he’s ever wanted, to see and feel Jack Morrison fall apart, come unraveling as pleasure consumes him whole -

“AH, _ah_ ,” Jack gasps as the build up, the energy, the needling pleasure bursts through him uncontrollably and he digs his fingers in, he clenches down hard at the pressure piercing into him, he releases his energy in a wave of blinding ecstasy and he’s calling out, “I - _fuck_ , Gabriel -”

A wave of his own pleasure rocks through Gabriel as he feels Jack twitch and spasm and empty a white hot release onto his hand, his chest, and Jack’s muscles seize down on Gabriel’s fingers as his soldier calls to him, calls _his_ name and it -

It is the greatest thing Gabriel has ever heard.

Jack shakes a few times, shuddering and gasping as Gabriel whispers sweet, pressuring words into his skin, as the strength in his legs dissipates and he collapses lightly into Gabriel’s lap and arms, breathing hard against dark, warm skin and sighing -

 _A good start_.

But Jack knows Gabriel

And Gabriel knows Jack

And neither of them are done with each other.

They never are.

In fact, Jack can feel Gabriel’s hard cock beneath him, and he shuts his eyes blissfully.

Inhale-exhale

One-two

Inhale-exhale

Three-four

“ _Oyé_ , listen, we don’t have to,” Gabriel mutters - not because he doesn’t _want to_ , holy fuck, of course he _wants_ to, but his eyes assess the bruises on Jack’s body, his lack of sleep, his unruly bedhead - but suddenly his voice cuts off as a finger trails a long, thin line up the length of his cock, pressing the soft cotton over it, until it reaches the head, where it _rubs_ instead -

And just the delicateness of the touch, just the _hint_ of Jack’s attention, makes Gabriel shudder.

Jack opens his eyelids again, chuckling.

“You never _have_ to, Gabriel,” Jack murmurs against his chest, “But I want to if you want to...and it certainly seems like you do.”  Slowly, Jack rights himself, sitting up a bit and he looks into Gabriel’s dark eyes, seeing that the need, the tension, the _want_ has only retreated, just a little bit, but Jack knows, Jack knows -

He can convince it to return in full force.

Because that it what Jack wants.

Jack detangles himself from Gabriel, who grumbles with the slightest whine, “Wait - where…?”

But Jack stands up off the bed before a slack hand lazily pushes his sweatpants down the rest of the way onto the floor and Gabriel mutters something darkly - something laced with both _devastating fury_ and _unending desire_ \- as both of them look at Jack’s legs.

There’s huge, swelling dark welts all over them, marring the pale skin with deep, blood red and ugly, insidious purple and Jack twists a little with mild amusement, trying to look at the back of them and -

“What the _actual fuck_ did those assholes do to you??” Gabriel snaps and Jack just sighs - it’s mixed with light frustration and also a surprising amount of happiness to hear how upset Gabriel is for him.

“Rubber bullets still hurt, Gabe,” Jack mutters - he doesn’t really have an issue with it - he’s tripped over his own feet often enough to have had some really bad falls, so at least the blood here never broke his skin, there’s no risk of infection and no worry that running will aggravate things.

But enough of this boring, dull, concrete mood.

Jack whips back around and he already feels that burning energy begin to glow inside him again and he grins down at Gabriel - mess on his right hand and mess on his chest - who just lightly gawks at him before Jack says, “So what’s the combo?”

“... _Qué_?” Gabriel says with bewilderment and Jack tilts his head towards the foot of the bed -

Where Gabriel’s supply chest sits.

Jack gives Gabriel a knowing smirk and he delights in the slight blush that darkens Gabriel’s cheeks.

“Uh, oh shit, okay, you’re serious -”

“Gabriel,” Jack flashes a grin again as he feels that tension already start to build inside him - _fucking hell_ , no wonder people had been going at it like jackrabbits for the last six months, these chemicals and hormones were _monstrous_ -

“Gabriel, did you think I was joking about how badly I wanted you to fuck me?”

Gabriel chokes on his own breath a little because Jack’s eyes dance with twisted delight, as the soft green lighting tints him just enough, makes him ethereal, makes him otherworldly, makes him even more incredible - that smile makes his heart flutter a little and, yeah, okay, it also makes his cock shiver a little and Jack - eyes glowing slightly in the light - bends over and grabs Gabriel’s messy right hand, kneeling awfully close to -

Gabriel steeply inhales as Jack hooks his right fingers over the band of Gabriel’s sweats and tugs slightly, pulling down boxers and sweatpants just enough to reveal Gabriel’s hard, aching, lightly dripping cock and _holy shit, pinche mierda_ , he’s not sure he’s going to survive the day -

Jack’s face is so close that Gabriel can feel his heated breath on the sensitive skin and he shudders slightly as his cock twitches just from being looked at so intensely and Jack laughs a dark, low, heavy sound and it drips with lust and desire and _Jesus_ , _Jack Morrison will be the death of him_ -

Jack flicks his cloudy, storming gaze to Gabriel’s face, with the barest hint of a smug smirk and Gabriel fights the urge to grab a fistful of that messy blonde hair and shove him down on it -

Because instead, Jack lifts Gabriel’s right hand, his own mess still on it and everything, lightly entwining his own fingers around Gabriel’s, and wraps both of their hands around his cock.

Gabriel heaves at the feeling - his own hand is nothing special at this point in his life, but _holy fuck_ , the slickness is still wet and warm and _god_ , what in the _fuck_ , Jack’s hand moves his slowly, pumping at his aching cock and Gabriel groans:

“ _Ay, pinche mierda, joder, no mames, JO-der, Jack, pinche cabrón,_ fucking _hell_ , Jack - _este siente muy bien, joder_ , fucking _FUCK_ -”

“So eloquent, Gabe,” Jack retorts, and Gabriel forces his eyes open to see Jack watching him with a vicious, vivid expression on his face.  He chuckles a deep throaty sound and Gabriel’s cock shudders in his own hand and then -

Jack’s hand releases his.

“Don’t stop, Gabriel, I want to see how bad you want this,” Jack murmurs to him, before rising and he saunters over to the foot of Gabriel’s bed and kneels before the chest, still giving him that dark, feverish look and -

“Let’s try this again, Gabriel.”

_[I’ve been waiting_

_This whole time_

_To hear you tell me_

_That you are mine.]_

Gabriel leans forward a little, still pumping himself, desperately trying to focus as Jack spins the little combination lock, before giving Gabriel another long, meaningful look.

“...12,” Gabriel croaks hoarsely, and Jack spins the lock saying slowly, “I want you to fuck me so hard that that I can’t walk straight.”  There’s another spike of pleasure in Gabriel’s groin, adding another layer to the throbbing pressure growing there.  Jack flicks his dark, stormy gaze back to Gabriel who wheezes out, “Left 27.”

“I want you to fuck me so hard I feel it with every step I take,” Jack hums viciously as he spins the lock the other way.  Gabriel hisses as his own hand reflexively squeezes tighter at the words.  There’s a pause before Jack looks back up at Gabriel, who growls, “7.”

Jack spins the lock to the last number and pulls the switch open before sliding it out of the fastener and he cracks open the supply chest.

Inside is a bunch of clothing - fatigues, stuff for warmer weather like sweatshirts and jackets, Gabriel’s favorite beanie sitting at the top of the pile, a bunch of socks and underwear, some books, some extra changers for his datapad, a medical supply kit, which Jack reaches for, but he pauses because -

There’s a large, dark, curving case at the bottom of the trunk -

“...You brought your guitar,” Jack states but it’s also a question and even though he can’t see him from behind the lid, he hears Gabriel stutter, “I, fuck, yeah, I brought it - we got to bring what, three personal items?  I just - I couldn’t not bring it, I haven’t had a chance to play -”

“...Will you play for me later?”

There’s a long pause and Jack pulls the med kit out, before lowering the lid slightly so just his eyes peek over at Gabriel.

Gabriel is blushing deep and furiously and a warm, wondrous feeling blooms inside Jack because Jack had not know, had not realized that he could still get Gabriel to act shy and weak and _open_ around him -

“...I’ll sing for you,” Jack offers as he shuts the lid, sweetening the deal and Gabriel looks at him, hard and deep and intensely, and Gabriel - _fuck_ , the pleasure building in his body and the heavy desire fogging up his head is making it hard to think properly, but Gabriel would give anything to see more of that look on Jack’s face, bathed in soft light and his smile wrought gold and his eyes dancing with mischief and something as deep and as dark as the bottom of the ocean, something that breaks Gabriel open and makes him vulnerable and weak but for Jack

He would give everything.

_[If we don’t break_

_This silent stare_

_Then I can’t leave, babe -_

_I can’t go anywhere.]_

“...Sure,” Gabriel assents slowly, and Jack cracks a beaming, broad smile at him, popping the med kit open and rooting past some of the band aids and wraps to the small packets of gel and foiled condoms.

He pulls out one of each and snaps the lid shut before slinking back over to where Gabriel is still touching himself and, _god_ , what a sight that is, watching his dark chest shudder - covered in Jack’s scratches - with trembling, growing need, watching as his intense, curling gaze follows Jack the whole way over and Jack -

Jack kneels on the carpeted floor, slotting himself in between Gabriel’s calves that hang over the side of the bed and he holds up the packets to Gabriel, who takes them with his left hand with a breathy grunt and Jack eases his right hand off his thick, heavy cock and once more, Jack makes eye contact with Gabriel -

God, he _loves_ that smoky, swirling, _burning_ look Gabriel gives him - a look of intense, aching, bittersweet want, flashing hot and vivid and seething with _need_ -

“Will you pull my hair?” Jack asks bluntly and Gabriel flinches at the sudden question, saying, “Wait, what -”

Jack presses his lips to the tip of Gabriel’s cock and swallows.

There’s a sudden spasm of Gabriel’s hips and a choking hitch to his breath as Jack shudders slightly at how fucking _good_ it feels to finally do this, to finally have Gabriel in his mouth, solid, firm, thick and heavy, salty and slightly bitter from Gabriel’s leaking head and also from his own mess but god, _god_ , it tastes just fine to him, and Gabriel’s shaking, cracking voice is music to Jack’s ears:

“Oh, _FUCK_ , Jack, holy _shit_ , _joder, pinche joder, ya valí madre_ \- Jesus CHRIST, Jack -”

Jack sucks hard and Gabriel hisses, before Jack glances back up at his shaking form, and the _look_ of bliss and overwhelming pleasure that flashes across Gabriel’s face in rolling waves is the greatest thing Jack has ever seen -

He chuckles a little and the vibrations run up Gabriel’s cock and _fuck_ , the heavy, hot wetness around him makes him throb and ache and thick pleasure throbs through him and god -

_[We’re like the trees in the wind_

_Oh honey, where the water bends.]_

Jack’s hand is suddenly back on his right hand and pulling it towards him -

Jack slides off Gabriel’s dick for a second to run his tongue over what bits of white heat remain on Gabriel’s hand and Gabriel nearly swallows his own tongue at the sight and his cock jerks in response.  Jack gives him another charming, wry smile before guiding Gabriel’s hand to his ruffled blonde hair and he dives back onto Gabriel’s cock and

“FUCK _,_ ” Gabriel hisses, winding his fingers into the short, fluffy strands, like light made tangible, made corporeal and he grips and pulls, not too hard he thinks but Jack moans around his cock and _fuck, fucking fuck_ \- hearing that and _feeling_ it is unreal, it sends another roll of wet heat into his groin and up into his lower back where it tingles and twitches heavily and Gabriel tugs again reflexively, shit, he didn’t mean to pull that hard but Jack just groans happily against his cock and _fuck_ , what a vicious, _amazing_ cycle -

Jack slides himself off for a second, panting, “Lube,” and Gabriel holds out his left hand to him, right hand still clenched in his hair, and Jack grabs the gel pack and rips it open with his teeth, before squeezing it

Into his right hand.

“...Wait, Jack, HOLY SHIT,” Gabriel breathes but Jack is suddenly back on his cock and pleasure ripples through him and

Without Gabriel knowing it, without him meaning to

He pushes down on Jack’s head.

Jack gasps and hums as Gabriel forces him down further, loving and hating and loving how the thick head of his cock pushes into the back of his mouth and then Gabriel is pulling at his hair again, the pain small and sharp and stinging pleasantly, and Gabriel is beginning to lose himself, really fall apart because his hips start jerking and his hand is guiding Jack’s head up and down, pushing and pulling and Jack moans at how good it feels, his jaw is sore, but he wants this, he wants Gabriel to come undone -

But not too fast.

Jack sits up a little more, adjusting himself on his knees pressed into the rough carpet and, bobbing his head along with Gabriel’s hand, he slides his left hand to the curve of his ass and opens himself up slightly before working his own, slicked fingers into himself.  Fuck, it’s been a long time since he’s done this to himself, and the angle is more awkward than he’s used to, but he’s already loosened up from Gabriel and it’s easy to get himself wet and open and ready -

 _Fuck_ , he is _so_ ready.

_[We move easy,_

_Oh, so easy, honey.]_

He fucks himself on his fingers a little bit longer, let’s Gabriel thrust into his mouth a little bit more before he pulls his head back himself and looks up at his face and _oh god_ -

Gabriel’s gaze is _blazing_ now, furious with heat and lust and the cresting edge and _god_ , it gets Jack’s semi-hard cock jerking and he wants he wants he wants -

“Condom,” he gasps and Gabriel snaps, “Shit, fuck, wait, I can do this -”

“Gabriel, I got it -”

But it slips from Jack’s wet fingers and _fuck_ , fuck, of course he drops it right when things are getting the most intense and he thinks it might have rolled under the bed.  Jack slumps down, looking in haste and he spots the foil out of his peripheral vision, reaching under the bed to get it when -

There’s a heavy thump on the floor beside him and Gabriel is there, his skin is practically _burning_ to the touch and his hands are grabbing at Jack hard and everywhere they touch causes Jack to hiss in sweet pain, as they grip and build on the wondrous ache in his muscles and suddenly there are fingers pressing back inside him -

_[We’re like the trees in the wind,_

_Yeah, baby - where that water bends.]_

“AH,” Jack cries, struggling to keep his grip on the condom and he weakly pulls himself back out from being partially under the bed, but Gabriel’s fingers are fucking into him relentlessly and he barely has the strength to even straighten himself back up properly as more waves of pleasure press into him hard and fast and strong -

“Ga-Gabriel,” Jack shudders, attempting to hand him the condom but Gabriel just growls behind him, “Open it.”  With shaking fingers and a few slippery attempts, Jack gets the wrapper open and holds it back to him - Gabriel tugs it from his grasp and - his right hand never leaving the pressured spot inside of Jack, he rolls it on his cock with his left hand.

“Hurry, Gabe,” Jack groans, making a weak effort to rise, putting his elbows on the mattress as he -

He doesn’t get a chance to get up.

_[We move easy.]_

Gabriel removes his hands and, with a hard, deep growl, digs his fingers into Jack’s hips and pulls him back hard, snapping his own hips forward, and Jack gasps as he grabs into the sheets, pressing his head against the rough, shaking side of the mattress as Gabriel shifts a hand to his stomach, pushing him up and back on his knees a bit more, his other hand moves to slide Jack’s thighs a little wider, grip hard and fierce and Jack hisses as his fingers scratch into the bruises there -

Gabriel presses the tip of his dick against the tight muscles and after taking a fraction of a second to breathe, he pushes in, and Jack shouts as the hard, stiff cock fills him, stretches him full, pushes back against Jack’s inside as much as he pushes against Gabriel outside and Gabriel’s groaning his name and squeezing his hip and Jack gasps -

And then Gabriel begins to move.

_[Back and forth_

_Just like the breeze, baby._

_Ohhhhh]_

Jack moans, his hands tighten into fists in the sheets because _fuck_ , _holy fuck_ , it feels _incredible_ to have Gabriel inside him, pushing in hard, pulling out fast, thrusting in harder, deeper, building his pleasure all over again, his left hand gripping Jack’s hip so hard Jack can feel the bruises forming and the other hand -

The other hand ruffles through Jack’s hair, scratching along his scalp -

Before it pushes Jack’s head gently but firmly, grinding the right side of Jack’s head into the hard, uncomfortable side of the mattress and _god_ , _yes_ , _Gabriel -_

“Harder,” Jack gasps and Gabriel thrusts and pushes even harder, both of them shuddering as the pleasure undulates through them and Jack groans, “Yes, Gabriel, _YES_ \- _más, dame más, dame más duro -_ ”

“Who the _fuck_ taught you this Spanish?” Gabriel snarls, raking his fingernails across Jack’s scalp and snapping his hips and cock into him hard, achingly, forcing his growing need, his growing pleasure into Jack, throbbing and thrusting into him and Jack half-moans, half-laughs, partially muffled by half his face being buried against the mattress, “Don’t - don’t like it?”

“Fuck _no_ , I _love it_ ,” Gabriel hisses, pounding hard against Jack’s swelling spot and relishing at how Jack clenches down with each thrust, how hot and tight and wet he is, how he gasps and whines each time Gabriel rubs against his particular pressure, how the pleasure rides through the spasming muscles and into Gabriel’s groin and up his lower back into his spine and chest, and _fuck_ -

“ _Más, Gabriel, Gabi, más, follame más, follame duro_ \- fuck me more, Gabriel, fuck me _harder_ ,” Jack begs, he’s starting to feel it burn inside him, starting to feel Gabriel’s relentless fucking deep into where his restless, aching energy has been building and throbbing for days, for all the days Gabriel wasn’t there, for all the days he laid in a dull concrete cell wishing they had done this sooner, wishing he had been better -

But god, _god_ -

Time means nothing now.

Time is Gabriel thrusting into him hard and endless and furious, time is Gabriel growling and groaning his name, time is Gabriel’s hands pressing into his head and hip, time is Gabriel’s pleasure, fucking into him hard and endless and furious.

His knees burn on the stiff carpet and his thighs tremble and shake with exhaustion and his hips are covered in rough fingerprints and he’s practically being smothered into the world’s worst mattress and there’s wave after wave of pressure and pleasure riding into him hard and endless and furious and Jack -

Jack _loves_ everything.

“ _Sí, Gabriel, sí, pinche joder, follame por favor_ \- make it rough, Gabi, I want to _feel_ you for days -” Jack shudders and Gabriel complies, shifting his hand to grip at Jack’s ass and spread him slightly just to reach deeper inside him and Jack cries out at the feeling as Gabriel mutters hoarsely, “Holy _fuck_ , Jack, keep going, keep fucking me like that - god _damn_ , you’re good, you’re so good -”

Jack’s shaking and trembling now, his aching cock is dripping, he just wants Gabriel to fuck him, to keep fucking him all the way through, to fuck him even when he’s done, he wants Gabriel to never stop, he wants this moment to last forever -

Gabriel groans as he watches Jack writhe and shudder under his hands, under his fierce thrusting, watches as Jack practically melts and clings to the side of the bed, his legs struggling to keep him upright, watches as Jack’s energy and pains and frustrations burn away into hazy, trembling ecstasy as Gabriel grunts as his own pleasure snakes through him like veins, digging into his groin and stomach and back like wonderful little claws, little spikes of electricity that surge into him from Jack, from that dense, tight heat and _fuck_ , he’s so _close_ -

But he wants to be _closer_.

He wants to _feel him_ -

He wants to feel Jack hit that edge and fall over -

And to fall with him.

Gabriel twists his fingers in Jack’s hair and snaps his right hand to Jack’s stomach and he pulls back with both hands, causing Jack to whine and plead with winces of pleasured pain -

“ _Gabriel_ ,” Jack hisses blissfully as Gabriel pulls him backwards and suddenly that intense pounding is _gone_ and Jack sobs as there’s nothing for him there -

And Gabriel practically throws him backwards onto the hard, stiff carpet.

_[Understanding before you go_

_That there ain’t nothing that’s left to know.]_

There’s a moment of restless quiet as Jack reorients himself in the world and re-catches his breath and suddenly hard fingers are gripping at his thighs and Jack shouts at how much the pressure on his already aching muscles _burns,_ burns _so good_

_So right_

_So perfect._

They were not born great, but -

_[Oh, you move me, and I move you too -_

_Only one thing that’s left to do.]_

Together -

Gabriel appears over him, eyes dark with a liquid, smoking heat, a deep burning _want_ and Jack feels the press of his cock back against his muscles and relaxes for him without a second thought.

And without Jack knowing it, without Jack meaning to

He holds out his arms to the man above him.

_[We’re like trees in the wind,_

_Yeah honey, where that water bends.]_

After a pause, Gabriel presses back into him and sinks into his arms and Jack gasps as the aching thrusting begins again, wrapping his arms around him, clawing at his shoulders, hoping to anchor himself against Gabriel’s solid form as the storm inside him roils and froths with pleasure  -

One of Gabriel’s hands presses to his face and Jack leans into it, moaning, as the other hand weaves into his hair and pulls -

Gabriel sighs and groans as that deep heat envelops him again, as Jack pushes back on him - inside and outside - as he clenches hard and scratches his nails into Gabriel’s skin and _fuck_ , everything feels so good -

So right

So perfect.

_[Ahhhh, we move easy -_

_Ohhh-oh, just like the breeze, baby - baby]_

They could make greatness -

Together.

The edge is coming, they’re rushing to it together, hard and endless and furious, as Jack howls “Gabriel, Gabriel, _Gabriel_ ,” against the side of his head and Gabriel bites hard at Jack’s shoulder, kisses his neck, nips at his lips before he relents to his own pleasure and gasps, “ _Fuck_ , Jack - so good, _so close_ -”

“Gabriel, Gabriel, I’m close, I’m gonna come, Gabi, _please, por favor_ \- fuck me ‘til you cum - I want to feel you -”

There’s pleasure pushing at both of them, from the inside out, from the outside in, as they ride their waves together, holding each other -

_[Ahhh, we’re like the trees in the wind,_

_Ahhh honey, where that water bends.]_

Jack holds Gabriel outside, and moves him inside.

Gabriel holds Jack outside, and moves inside him.

_[Ahhh, we move easy -_

_Back and forth, back and forth, ohhhh -]_

Jack falls first as their pleasure consumes him, forces him down, grinding him into the hard, stiff carpet, and he clings to Gabriel’s skin, gasping as Gabriel bites at his lip as the waves crash over him and everything inside him releases, _everything gives_ -

_[We’re like the trees in the wind, baby,_

_Ahhh, where that water bends.]_

Gabriel groans as Jack clenches and spasms and grips him hard inside to out and he thrusts hard and endless and furious as the bolts of Jack’s energy seize him hard and fast and furious, sparking into him like lightning, blinding and white and he’s shouting Jack’s name as his throbbing heat releases, he’s burning, they’re burning -

_[Ohhh-oh, we move_

_Easy, easy, easy, easy - ohhh-oh]_

And Jack rides against him, rolling his hips hard and fast and furious as Gabriel moves into him one-two, three-four and they’re gasping and clenching and holding each other hard as the pleasure rivers and winds in and in and in and then slowly back out and out and out -

“Gabriel, Gabriel,” Jack sighs, shaking and shuddering and Gabriel kisses hard at the column of his throat, at the joint of his jaw and Jack nuzzles back against him as those thick hands stroke through his hair - sunlight made tangible, made corporeal - and Gabriel stares at him with a softer, lighter expression - like the warmth of a flickering fire - content just to watch Jack pick up the pieces of himself and stitch himself back together -

Only now

With the ache of Gabriel inside him.

And Jack tilts those clouded, misted rain eyes towards Gabriel and runs gentle fingertips along Gabriel’s scalp, through the buzz of his hair and he laughs a little at the soft feeling and he -

He stitches one of his pieces into Gabriel with the sound.

They stay like that -

Together -

For a long moment, as Jack’s hands trace over Gabriel’s high cheekbones, over the fuzz of his scruff, across his lips, where Gabriel presses a tender kiss to his fingertips -

It’s sweet and dangerously gentle like spun sugar and honey and hormones and the smell of wood smoke and the deep rumble of thunderstorms in the distance -

It feels like home.

Neither of them would ever call this place home -

But perhaps, someday -

They would call each other home.

Today, the feeling is still a little new, still a little overwhelming, still a touch too hesitant, but they know, they know -

They could be great together.

They could be _made_ great together.

Slowly, languidly, Jack murmurs, “When did you start growing the beard?”

“Hmm, well, I forgot to shave and then they put us in the stupid simulation and I forgot to shave that night too so it just - started?” Gabriel hums, propping himself up on an elbow - he still hasn’t moved out from inside Jack, but Jack’s content with that, content to let him linger -

“Like it?” Gabriel asks and Jack smirks, “I do.  Looks good on you.  Needs to grow out a little more.”

“You think?” Gabriel mutters, running a hand over the short hairs and Jack chuckles, “It looks a little thin now - I think it could look better if you let it grow a bit.”

Gabriel shrugs, “You’re the one that has to look at it.”

“Will you grow your hair out too?” Jack asks, just a touch too eagerly because Gabriel scowls at that before grumbling, “No.”

“Aww, Gabi, _para mi, por favor?_ ” Jack asks slyly and Gabriel growls, “Yet another thing you can’t convince me to do.”

“But you started the beard!” Jack insists, and Gabriel sighs, “I mean, it was mostly me being forgetful -”

And Jack hits upon a slow realization.

“...What do you mean, ‘you forgot to shave that night?’” Jack asks with increasing suspicion and Gabriel smirks at him smugly, _ese pendejo_ , bragging, “Well, I was out by the first night, Jack.”

“Are you fucking with me?”

“No, asshole, I just finished that part,” Gabriel grunts as he slowly pulls himself apart from Jack, rising to his knees and hissing slightly as he pulls out of Jack - Jack wincing at losing his warmth, his firmness, even if it was already fading - and Gabriel turns away to clean himself up and pull his sweats back up all the way before chucking the condom to the trash basket in the corner -

“Kobe,” he snaps as it falls in the center and Jack groans, covering his face, mumbling into his hands, “Did you really just fucking do that with the condom?”

“You gotta do it for every shot, _hombre_ , that’s how it works,” Gabriel states matter-of-factly and Jack sighs, “I thought you weren’t superstitious.”

“It’s not superstition if it works,” Gabriel retorts, before settling himself back on the floor besides Jack.  It’s hard and uncomfortable and still a thousand times better than that dull concrete cell -

Especially when Gabriel lies down and Jack settles his head on his chest, tucking his arm around Gabriel’s waist.

“...I cannot fucking believe you got out on the first day,” Jack mutters tartly and Gabriel chuckles, the rumble of it running through his chest and into Jack’s head, “Some of us are just _that good_ , Jack.”

“What the fuck did you even do, anyways?” Jack asks, realizing he hadn’t actually done that yet and Gabriel mumbles, “You’re gonna think it’s fucking ridiculous -”

“You can literally not have done any worse than me,” Jack says and Gabriel snorts at that one, saying, “Yeah, I fucking _heard_ \- did you actually fucking say to ‘Spiderman it?’”

“I will never live this down,” Jack groans and Gabriel laughs, a deep, resounding laughter that makes Jack breathe easier, that moves him down to his core -

That feels like home.

“Fuuuck, just tell me what you did, maybe that will make me feel better,” Jack sighs and Gabriel...pauses and -

“...I started a food fight.”

Jack lies there, blinking in the half-lighting of the room before stating, “What the fuck.”

“Okay, _okay_ \- _YOU_ do not get to judge me, Spiderman,” Gabriel snaps at him and Jack laughs against his warm chest, “What the fuck, Gabe - I can’t tell if that’s brilliant or fucking psychotic -”

“Okay, asshole -”

“You’re the fucking top ranked supersoldier candidate in the United States and you beat the Stanford Prison Experiment bullshit by _throwing food at the guards_?” Jack states with an incredulous giggle and Gabriel growls, “Alright, hang on, there’s more to it than that -”

“What in the fuck, Gabriel, you’re a maniac -”

“Gee, thanks, Jack - I love you, too, jerkoff.”

A stunned stillness falls over them, and then Jack jolts himself up, staring wide-eyed at Gabriel who looks at him in confusion until Jack cracks the _biggest shit-eating grin he’s ever had_ -

Gabriel’s eyes double in size in horror.

“Wait, WAIT, NO - JACK -”

“YOU SAID IT,” Jack seethes with rage and joy and tumultuous laughter as he cackles at Gabriel, who sputters, “NO - THAT - THAT WASN’T - _FUCK_!”

“You said it FIRST,” Jack howls, nearly crying as Gabriel grabs at his shoulder, snapping, “That’s not at all - the context matters!  It was sarcasm!  I called you a jerkoff!”

“Oh my god, you said it first,” Jack gasps, wheezing, “Oh my god, I never thought I’d see the day I’d come out on top.”  Jack flashes a wicked smile at Gabriel, eyes dancing with green-tinted light and mischief and sheer unbridled joy and Gabriel melts down into smoke at the sight, he’s weak to that look, even as Jack murmurs with awe, “They are gonna give you _so much shit_ for this at West Point.”

“Asshole, don’t you fucking dare -” Gabriel protests but it sounds weak even to him and Jack - still giggling to himself - settles himself back on Gabriel’s chest, wrapping his arm around him tight and Gabriel sighs mainly to himself, muttering, “I am fucking _weak_.”

“Just admit that I can convince you to do anything,” Jack hums as he listens to the quiet, rhythmic thudding of Gabriel’s heart against his ear, into his head, into his chest -

Into the small part of Gabriel that’s inside him now.

“You will _never_ get me to fucking eat those shittyass nachos or any other abominations you make,” Gabriel rumbles and though the floor is hard and stiff and uncomfortable -

Gabriel’s chest is warm and pleasant and it beats -

It feels like home.

Jack’s eyelids flutter shut as he smiles once more.

The universe had decided to give him a decent pillow after all.

They stay like that for a moment until Gabriel mutters halfheartedly, “We should get up.”

A soft snore is all that answers him.

“Jack?  Aw, fucking _shit_ , Jack - don’t do this to me - oh my god, you’re still naked, fuck, I’m half naked too - I’m going to push you off.”

The head of gold-blonde hair shifts ever so slightly, rising and falling with Gabriel’s steady breathing.

Gabriel stares up at the dull concrete ceiling above him.

He inhale-exhales.

Inhale-exhales.

Mutters into the shadowy, soft lighting, “God dammit, Jack.”

And then shuts his eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish Translations:
> 
> \- Jack: "PINCHE JODER, NO MAMES, QUE CHINGADOS, HOLY SHIT - ": "FUCKING FUCK, DON'T FUCK WITH ME, WHAT THE FUCK, HOLY SHIT - "  
> \- Gabriel: “Estoy contigo.”: "I'm with you."  
> \- Jack: “Y yo, contigo.”: "And I, with you."  
> \- Gabriel: “Oh, pinche joder, qué chingados, no mames -”: "Oh fucking fuck, what the fuck, don't fuck with me - "  
> \- Jack: “Rápido, Gabriel, por favor, quiero que me cojas -”: "Fast, Gabriel, please, I want you to fuck me - "  
> \- Jack: “Gabriel, más, necesito más de ti -”: "Gabriel, more, I need more of you - "  
> \- Jack: "Gabriel, Gabi, por favor, te quiero": "Gabriel, Gabi, please, I want you."  
> \- Gabriel: “Ay, pinche mierda, joder, no mames, JO-der, Jack, pinche cabrón, fucking hell, Jack - este siente muy bien, joder, fucking FUCK -”: "Ah, fucking shit, fuck, don't fuck with me, FU-ck, Jack, fucking asshole, fucking hell, Jack - this feels so good, fuck, fucking FUCK -"  
> \- Gabriel: “Oh, FUCK, Jack, holy shit, joder, pinche joder, ya valí madre - Jesus CHRIST, Jack -”: "Oh, FUCK, Jack, holy shit, fuck, fucking fuck, I'm so fucked - Jesus CHRIST, Jack -"  
> \- Jack: “Yes, Gabriel, YES - más, dame más, dame más duro -”: "Yes, Gabriel, YES - more, give me more, give (it) to me harder -"  
> \- Jack: “Más, Gabriel, Gabi, más, follame más, follame duro": "More, Gabriel, Gabi, more, fuck me more, fuck me hard"  
> \- Jack: “Sí, Gabriel, sí, pinche joder, follame por favor": "Yes, Gabriel, yes, fucking fuck, fuck me please"
> 
> \---------
> 
> Notes:
> 
> ...Did I deliver on your expectations?
> 
> First, let's all give a round of applause for Gabriel for not NUTTIN the moment Jack came onto him because that's 100% what I would've done.
> 
> Then we'll give a round of applause to Jack for putting up with Gabriel's tragic basketball-related humor.
> 
> (How many terrible post-sex "Kobes" do you think Jack's heard in his lifetime?)
> 
> Fun Facts!:
> 
> \- Gabriel's three personal items: his guitar, a secret stash of spices, and his game system to play NBA 2K43 and a bunch of shitty, terrible, non-wireless connection games.  
> \- Jack's three personal items: his own game system to play against Gabriel and to play Pokemon, a secret stash of sugar, and a coffeemaker.  
> \- Carlos did not go anywhere near that room until he saw both of them in the mess hall like three hours later.  
> \- The other candidates are shocked when Jack accidentally brings a cup of coffee out of his room one morning, and thus begins the "secret coffee trade" in SEP.  
> \- The "Secret Coffee Trade" is shut down three weeks later when the directors confiscate Jack's coffeemaker.  
> \- They give back Jack's coffeemaker when the entire cohort nearly riots after confiscating it.  
> \- Jack was majoring in foreign languages at West Point: he grew up around Latinx workers in the farming community outside of Bloomington, so he already knew Spanish pretty well; he took four years of Spanish in high school; he'd completed a majority of his Spanish language requirements before coming to SEP.  
> \- Gabriel was majoring in history and was Brigade Commander and First Captain of his year, which is why he was the top SEP candidate from West Point.  
> \- Gabriel was held back in first grade due to having difficulty reading, but his mother persisted in teaching him how to read. Because of this, he's approximately a year older than everyone in his grade, and roughly a year-and-a-half (almost two years) older than Jack who managed to partially skip classes in high school because he completed several of them early.  
> \- Jack suffered quite a bit thoroughout high school but found an outlet and friends when he joined the track team.  
> \- Gabriel picked up boxing when he was suspended for fighting in high school, and his favorite uncle convinced him to try the sport instead of getting in trouble.  
> \- Jack does not speak to his father or brother, but he makes an effort to email his mother when he gets a chance.  
> \- Gabriel has a troubled family life, but cares deeply for his mother and two sisters.  
> \- Jack made his terrible nachos one night when he was completely fucking WASTED and discovered that he kinda likes the taste of them. 90% of the time he makes them just to piss Gabriel off.  
> \- This is based on a Real Life Friend who drunkenly added hot cheetos to their spaghetti one time.  
> \- The Omnic Crisis begins in full six months after this story.  
> \- SEP continues for about another full year after the Omnic Crisis begins. After the two-year program is completed, the supersoldiers are offered jobs from different U.S. military branches to engage in the war.  
> \- The United Nations Security Council's Under-General-Secetary Gabriella Adawe supercedes the United States and offers a very...unique opportunity to Gabriel and Jack before the U.S. military can.
> 
> ...And the rest, as they say - 
> 
> Is history.


	3. How He Was Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE, PENDEJOS
> 
> HERE COMES THE BOOM
> 
> Song: Ready Set Let's Go - Sam Tinnesz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCRiErm1GVw)
> 
> (Just a head's up, there's no smut here, if that's what you're looking for - this is 100% pure action.)

  **127: How He Was Made**

 

August 3, 2045: 0506 - Inside the Prison Simulation in the SEP facility in Boise National Forest, Idaho

 

Gabriel waits patiently.

That’s all he can do at the moment, really.  He fucking hates waiting around for things, but this situation calls for delicacy, for tact, and for, well, for patience.

 _Dios dame paciencia_ , he thinks for what is probably the millionth time in the last… two hours?

Has it really only been two hours?

His sleep-addled brain can hear his mamá calling to him from the past, in her quiet, patient chastisements of “Patience, _mijo_!  You will never understand if you try to rush.”  It had been the only thing to get him to slow down and learn to read - to learn to process each word at a time, even when the letters were frustrating and awkward and clumsy in his head.  It had been the only thing to get him to learn how to take care of his cuts and scratches whenever he fell from a tree or, later, got into fights.  It had been the only thing to get him to learn how to repair his own clothes with patches and holes when money got tight, when the choice came down to food or frivolities.  It had been the only thing to get him to learn how to box away his anger and frustration and pain when the rest of the world seemed like it was trying to drag him down to its miserable, pathetic little level in the worst neighborhoods of LA.

It had been the only thing to get him to learn.

Patience had been the only thing to get him to learn.

So even though Gabriel’s blood rushes, even though his thoughts race, even though his pulse pounds, even though his hands flex, even though the fight and the fire and the anger burn

He forces himself to be patient.

Outside, in the darkness of the cell block, the 126-150 group snores away, and someone mumbles something indistinctly in their sleep.  There’s the creaking and groaning of cell cots straining under shuffling forms, and in another cell that he can’t see, a faucet drip-drip-drips steadily in the darkness.  In his cell, on the upper bunk, Louisa sighs deeply in some sort of shifting dream, before she rolls over into another position.  Across the way from their cell, he can hear Carlos’ deep, rhythmic breathing and Jamie’s semi-frequent sniffling.

Gabriel does not _want_ to blame them for sleeping when they shouldn’t - they had all been woken up well before the asscrack of dawn at like 3 am to be grouped up into their standard 25-numbered groups and herded into these shitty little cell blocks in a matter of minutes.  They were very briefly and very succinctly informed that their goal was “to get out,” and left alone in the darkness of pre-dawn - although Gabriel suspects that if this is part of the last “maze” the directors built, then there are no windows in it - would reveal too much information: time of day, orientation of the sun, position within the mountain region the facility is nestled in, etc - makes it too easy to escape the maze when you can figure out time, direction, and location.  

And then - also in a matter of minutes, when it was clear that nothing was actually gonna _happen_ to them - the majority of the group had prompted picked their cots and fallen straight the fuck asleep.

Gabriel, because he is impatient, did not.

_[No pain, no victory_

_Your reign is history_

_'Cause we're not stoppin' till we break through_

_So take your best shot, make your move]_

Instead, he had immediately begun inspecting the cell, assessing its conditions, figuring out its strengths and weaknesses, if it possessed any secrets or advantages.  

The cell doors and bars did not reach all the way to the ceiling - there was like a foot-and-a-half of concrete hanging down.  The sliding part of the cell door was screwed into its frame with heavy industrial screws - far too big and too tightly wound for him to get them out by bare hand.  The bars showed some structural weaknesses at the weldings, but he doesn’t think he’s _that_ much of a supersoldier (yet) to rip them apart with his hands - but perhaps if he could get something relatively sharp and solid, he could hack away for a bit and make the structure even weaker.  It’s such a stereotypical method to try and break out of jail - filing down the bars, how fucking ridiculous - but he wouldn’t need to cut into them all the way - just weaken select points and put enough pressure on them to get them to snap with a couple of well-placed kicks by him and Louisa.  Still, that required getting some sort of file or cutter and he had nothing like that (at the moment).

The cots had metal frames and were bolted into the left side of the cell (right side if you were someone outside looking in - always important to keep positioning in mind).  He could perhaps get the bottom cot unscrewed from the wall, but the bolts are gigantic and very solid - he would probably need a wrench or a crank to get them off.  Maybe if he and Louisa worked together on it, they could get it out but then how could they use it?  It would make for a decent shield if they needed one, but that seems pointless if they are still stuck in the cell anyways.

Besides, he does not want to start using up what few resources and ideas he has _quite_ yet.  He has to see if more opportunities present themselves first.

There were blankets and thin, ratty pillows on each cot - Gabriel supposes they could hang them or tear them up.  Hanging them would do nothing but confuse people and maybe provide some privacy if they needed to work in secret (unscrewing the cot maybe?  Hard to say), but he won’t throw out the possibility of needing to work confusion into some plan.  A far more interesting, more tantalizing idea is to tear them apart and make rope out of them - assuming they could _somehow_ get the bars of the cell door weakened, they could perhaps rip them off instead by using a makeshift rope and pulley system, but a far _better_ idea was attempting some sort of trap.  He’s not a great hunter, but he knows Jamie knows how to make snares and nooses - they could potentially set one up in the darkness of the hallway and snag something or someone when they pass through, but that would be risky - that assumes that something or someone has the same visibility levels as they do and he doesn’t want to have to bank on that.  More importantly, that would require the other members of 126-150 to not alert something or someone of the plan, which he _definitely_ doesn’t want to have to bank on that.  He wouldn’t trust them to pick their own noses properly.

They could also go for a “tripwire” - lay a strip of the blankets between Cell 1 and Cell 2, and then pull when something or someone walks by, but they would then have to hope that something or someone would be in their immediate range for any of the four of them to grab said something or someone.  The two hypothetical “blanket plans” have a good deal of potential, but would require learning a little bit more about the situation - how many guards are there?  Do they have individual patterns and behaviors?  Will they deviate from what they have been told to do?  Do they walk straight down the cell block and straight back up, or could they potentially be...persuaded to come closer to a cell, within reach of an arm?  This would almost certainly require them to be in the simulation for a day, maybe a day and half, to learn a full routine.

Gabriel, quite frankly, does not have the patience for that.

Personally, Gabriel thinks the “blanket plans” could be “low risk, high reward” - it’s not cold enough at night to require them, and the blankets aren’t thick enough to replace mattresses, so really, the loss of the blankets to make them into ropes is not tremendous.

However - and this is another thing Gabriel lacks -

He’s not certain he has the ability to properly persuade anyone to give up what little tactile comfort they possess for a plan, even one that’s “low risk, high reward.”  Not even Louisa, Carlos, and Jamie, who seem pretty much willing to try a majority of his insane ideas.

And, again, he’s not about to go using up resources immediately.

The sink and the toilet showed far more usability than the cots - they are clearly much more temporary than any other part of the simulation.  Their pipes are thin and weak, built in relative haste, probably quick and fast and messy installations to turn the maze into a fake prison.  They could, with Louisa’s help, be very quickly dismantled, and that would provide them with a number of resources: cheap iron-based metals from the pipes, heavy ceramics from the sink and toilet bases, a handful of nuts and bolts for...whatever, structural stability on the ropes maybe?  Something to weave the torn “strands” of the blankets around?  Not bad, not bad.

They could hypothetically grind the cheap metal down into weapons, make shivs and darts and modified spears.  

In the darkness, Gabriel grins viciously at the thought.

He does not want to hurt anyone.

...Not yet.

...But he is also not very patient, especially about waiting around with nothing to do.

The biggest potential problem with the “el baño” plans would be the flow of water and if he would utilize that or not.  Despite the cheapness of their installations, they flow relatively strongly - both the sink and the toilet work properly - and Gabriel would have to figure out if he wants to use the water as a resource or a distraction somehow, or stuff the pipes with parts of the blankets or parts of the ratty pillows to stop the flow.  The faucet might be weak enough to be bent.  It could be great if they could control the flow of the water and aim it directionally at something or someone, and perhaps (modifying the U-bend maybe?) they could get something or someone right in the face - hard enough to temporarily blind them - for a snare or a tripwire?

...Or even force them to fall in range of a shiv?

They could get the floor of the hallway slick, adding to the potential of a tripwire.  If Gabriel had persuasive skills, he could probably destroy the pipes, get his cell partially flooded, and convince something or someone to _enter_ the cell to fix it, but he doesn’t trust his words enough to be capable of doing that.

Jack probably could.

But Jack’s not here, and even though Gabriel doesn’t _like_ that, the fact is that he has to learn to work alone.  Jack’s persuasive skills got the two of them out of trouble (and possible suspensions) a number of times at West Point, but they weren’t going to be a help here.

And Gabriel -

Gabriel could not rely on him forever.

Even if that is what Gabriel wants.

Gabriel has to stick to his strengths and diminish his weaknesses.  He has to use his ability to think tactically, to think critically, to see how the mundane and ordinary can be used in unique and extraordinary ways.  He half-wishes he had his notebook on him - writing things down or even just making a quick note in his datapad always helps him keep track of his own, impatient thoughts, thoughts that sometimes move too fast for even him to keep up, thoughts that rage like the fight and the fire and the anger.  But they had made them leave everything in their dorm rooms before grouping them up.

But that’s the thing -

When you think tactically, think critically - when you think about how the mundane and ordinary can become unique and extraordinary:

Even impatience can become a strength and not a weakness.

_[Oh, step right up, who's next?_

_You're messin' with the best]_

He just had to learn to channel it into the right outlets.

And that -

That’s what Gabriel has spent his whole life _doing_ :

Making patience out of impatience -

Making strengths out of weaknesses -

Making the unique out of the mundane -

Making the ordinary into the extraordinary -

Making himself into something _better_ than the world around him -

Making himself into something _great_.

_> "I could do better."  <_

He’s had to claw his way into this, into being himself, into being better, into being great - every person he’s encountered has doubted him, even his own father and brother - deadbeats and _pendejos_ , the both of them.  He’s had to stand down teachers gatekeeping him and questioning his abilities, he’s had to fight off gang members who wanted him to become something mundane and ordinary and weak, he’s had to war with his own impatience and anger and fire just to make them into something better, something patient, something _good_.  He’s had to prove to everyone - to shove it so far down their throats that it rounded the bend and came out their asses - that some shittyass, impatient, angry _chicano_ kid from the streets of Los Angeles could be something strong, something unique, something extraordinary -

Something better -

Something _great_.

_[We're death-defyin'_

_Coming in like lightnin'_

_Look out, we're strikin'_

_Ready set, ready set let's go]_

Gabriel had felt accomplished just graduating high school with honors, he had felt accomplished with just getting into West Point, had felt accomplished that he could secure a four-year-degree and an automatic paid position in the U.S. military, that as long as he kept himself steady at “doing good” he would eventually become something “better” than his old world believed he could ever be.

But then he had met Jack Morrison, and -

It had been a breath of air so fresh and so full of life and rain and the power of thunderstorms when some blonde-haired, blue-eyed, snarky kid from bumfuck Indiana had acknowledged Gabriel’s abilities without Gabriel even needing to fight him for it -

Without Gabriel even needing to demand his respect -

Without Gabriel even needing to ask.

Jack had been the first person to never doubt Gabriel’s potential -

Jack had been the first person to never doubt that Gabriel could be _great_ -

_“I want to achieve greatness with you!”_

To never doubt that Gabriel could make something _great_ -

Out of himself, or maybe even

Out of themselves, together.

And without Jack knowing it, without Jack meaning to -

Those brilliant persuasive skills had somehow worked their way into Gabriel, had churned inside him, had only enhanced his own fiery drive into something _better_ , something _greater_ \- he should feel accomplished for the things he had done, he should be proud of himself, he had every right to be, but he didn’t have to _stop_ there, he didn’t have to accept that, he could be even _better_ , he could be even _greater_ -

Where Gabriel saw good, Jack saw great.

Where Gabriel saw a better “him” for the world -

Jack saw a better world for him.

Because Jack believed Gabriel could not just make himself better -

Or make himself great -

But Jack believed Gabriel could make the world better -

Could make the world great.

And Gabriel - for all his tactical thinking, for all his critical thinking, for all his mundane-to-unique thinking -

Gabriel had never thought of that potential before.

And this was where Jack Morrison’s belief in him, belief in his ability to make things, had led him:

Right into fucking prison.

 _Fucking_ thanks _, Jack, you asshole_ , Gabriel chuckles to himself, but there’s no venom behind the thought, no anger, just begrudging admiration and sarcastic humor for his friend (who would probably just laugh right back at him if he were there), _Got me right into the place I’ve spent my whole life breaking stereotypes to avoid.  What a fuckwad._

_[This fire's blazin'_

_We're troublemakin'_

_We got you shakin'_

_Ready set, ready set let's go]_

Gabriel leans against the right cell wall ( _left if you are looking in_ , he reminds himself), listening to the rest of his number group snore and sleep and remain idle, running through his possible plans in his head, doing his best to estimate time, and -

He waits patiently.

If he’s kept his time right, then any moment now -

A ways down the hall, Gabriel hears several footsteps and the rattling of...a cart?

In the darkness, he scowls to himself.

Here comes an opportunity.

_[I've waltzed through these veins_

_Trouble is our gain]_

Suddenly, the heavily artificial, fluorescent lights _blaze_ on in the cell block and even Gabriel, with his eyes adjusted to the darkness, has to hiss in mild pain as his vision nearly whites out from the sudden brightness.  In the cells, people are moaning and whining about the lights, shifting in their cots as the rattling sounds and footsteps get closer -

“Alright, motherfuckers, who wants breakfast?”

Gabriel, eyes watering slightly, really scowls now.

This threw a wrench into his planning.

Unfortunately, it did not throw a physical, real wrench at him.  He would’ve preferred that - he could’ve used a real wrench.

No, he’s mildly cheesed off because the voice does not belong to one of the directors or one of the “real soldiers” enforcing order and guiding their training.

The voice belongs to 12.

In the upper cot, Louisa sighs to herself and rolls over, and Gabriel glances up at her to see her eyes half-squinted against the light looking down at him.  He flashes her a short, terse grin:

“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Mmm, what’s going on?” she groans, a hand popping up from under her blanket to rub at her face and Gabriel tilts his head to his right, towards the central hall among the cells, saying, “We got food.”  Across the way, his peripheral vision picks up the movement of Carlos in the top bunk and Jamie rolls over with a whine in the bottom bunk.

Suddenly, there are figures in between them.

Gabriel turns to look at them, pulling himself up off the wall.

...Well fucking _shit_.

There’s four of them - 05, 09, 12, and 18 - all dressed in light armor and all of them carrying what look to be modified rifles.  Gabriel frowns - the government was not interested in truly harming its supersoldiers, so the guns have to be pretty weak relatively-speaking, not real bullets, not even the new pulse technology going around, perhaps something old school like paintballs or rubber.

The guns are a potential problem, but in a moment of surprise, a gun could be overwhelmed -

And a gun would be useless if getting shivved from behind.

12 and 18 have their guns set in their hands, pointed into the cell - their cell - as 05 stops pushing the cart.  09 bends down to pull something from it and stands back up with two trays of the usual: canned meat, some fugly-looking vegetables, and watery oatmeal.

In her cot, Louisa sits up and stares at them as Gabriel cautiously approaches the cell door, his eyes never leaving the guns in 12 and 18’s hands.

...So this is the game they’re playing today.

The Stanford Prison Experiment.

Old school, classic.

Fucking _terrifying_ too.

As he crosses the gap to the cell door, Gabriel notices the most important piece of information he’s picked up so far today -

Every single one of them is carrying a huge key clipped to their belts.

_[Keepin' aces up every sleeve_

_Bringing rivals down to their knees]_

“...The fuck are you guys doing here?” 134 asks from the cell next to Carlos’ and Jamie’s.  She’s gotten up and is hanging out on the cell bars, watching the four lower numbers with a sleepy gaze.

“What does it look like?” 18 says, “We’re giving you guys breakfast.”

“Why aren’t you in a cell block?” 137 calls out and 05 sighs, “Listen, guys -”

“YOU don’t get to ask questions,” 12 yells, and _oh boy_ , Gabriel thinks the powertrippin’ might have started already.

“Dude, what the fuck?” 136 says, “Don’t be an asshole - we just want to know what’s going on.”

“You guys are locked in here, and we’re not,” 18 states coldly, “It’s that simple.  We’re here to give you breakfast.”  Behind them, Carlos and Jamie approach their cell door and Gabriel gives them the slightest of nods, which both of them quietly acknowledge - Jamie with a brief hand wave and Carlos with his own nod.

“Yeah, so nut up and shut up,” 12 tacks on eloquently and Gabriel just makes a skeptical face.  He hears Louisa jump down from her cot and approach the bars beside him.

“What makes you so high and mighty?” 147 shouts at him, and 12 snaps, “I’m the one with the gun, aren’t I?”

That quiets the part of the cell block that can’t see them, and the four of them return their attention to Gabriel and Louisa.

“...Not so hot now, are you, Top Rank?” 12 smirks viciously as 05 just sighs helplessly and 09 rolls his eyes behind him.  18 grumbles, “Dude, c’mon, it’s only like 5 am, even I’m too tired for this.”

“Are all four of you assholes going to be here every time?” Gabriel snaps, before adding, “Or are we gonna get some prettier faces to look at?”

“Oh god dammit, not you too,” 18 says, rubbing at her face tensely and 12 snarls, “Already missing 76, are you?  God, you’re whipped.”

“I know a sexy blonde when I see one,” Gabriel says before smirking, “And I’m sorry, but even though you’re blonde, 12, you don’t have the qualifications for the first part.”

05 snorts at that and even 09 cracks a smile, but beside him, Louisa groans, “Gabriel, for fuck’s sake, can we just get our food?”

“You can talk shit all you want, 127,” 12 glowers at him, jabbing the rifle towards him, “But there’s no fucking way your lucky ass is getting out of this one.”  09 pushes him out of the way slightly, muttering, “Okay, hurry this up, we got more shit to do.”

“No such thing as luck,” Gabriel snaps back to 12 as 09 pushes the first tray into a small rectangular slot in the door.  Gabriel takes it and hands it to Louisa, but his eyes never leave 12 as he mutters, “Only good genetics.”

“Oh come the fuck on, dude,” 12 says, rolling his eyes and even 18 sighs, “Is this another paranoid rant about how there’s no such thing as ‘coincidences’ and there are only ‘connections between things’ or some shit?”

Gabriel takes the second tray from 09 and mutters, “Guess y’all got me all figured out - good job, looking forward to seeing the rank changes at the end of this week.”

“You’re a fuckin’ piece of shit,” 12 snaps at him one last time before they roll the cart down past them to the cell next to theirs.

_[Oh, step right up, who's next?_

_You're messin' with the best]_

Gabriel watches them for a second, staring at the keys on the belts, before he turns back towards Louisa, who is sitting on the lower cot, lifting a forkful of limp spinach to her mouth -

“DON’T EAT IT,” Gabriel hisses at her and she stares at him in blank confusion before sighing with mild frustration and setting the fork back down, grumbling, “And why not, Gabriel?”

“Why the fuck would you ever eat something given to you by the enemy?” Gabriel snaps at her, seating himself besides her.  But this time, now that he’s closer and he can hear the four guards rambling and talking and harassing the others down the line, he whispers, “I got some ideas.”

“I fucking knew you would,” she sighs before staring at her plate, “But what does the food have to do with it.”

“A lot.  Listen, if we’re gonna do this stuff, we gotta do it hard and fast.  That’s the only way outta here.”

“You wanna take on four people with rifles at 5 am on an empty stomach?” Louisa questions him and Gabriel shakes his head, muttering, “Not right now.  They’re not gonna send four people every time - why waste energy and people like that?  In fact, if we’re lucky, they’ll be totally off-guard and just send one person.  It’s early in the simulation - they’re as ill-prepared for us as we are for them.”

Louisa watches him with a hard squint before asking quietly, “And if they send two?  Or more?”

Gabriel chuckles, “That’s why we need back-up.”

He glances over to Carlos and Jamie, gesturing to them quietly.  Jamie spots him first before nudging Carlos and the two of them watch him point to the food, and then shake his head.  Jamie sighs as Carlos makes an exaggerated shrug and Gabriel picks up the fork from his tray, fiddling with it in his hand slightly -

Before he makes a stabbing motion with it.

The three people paying attention to him fall still.

After a pause, Louisa murmurs, “...Are you serious?”

“We’re not just gonna have forks,” Gabriel whispers back to her, as the plan takes shape in his head, “But we will need to work fucking _fast_.  I’m talking balls fast, quick as lightning, float like a butterfly sting like a bee fast.  But first -”

The cart and the four guards are working their way back up the other side and as they steadily approach Carlos’ and Jamie’s cell with the last two trays of food, Gabriel sets his tray on the cot and rises to approach the cell bars.

“Hey,” he shout out to them, “You fuckers gonna do this for every meal?”

12 immediately snaps around, saying, “God, I could really just shoot you right now and literally no one could stop me,” causing Gabriel to smirk wickedly at him.  18 just nudges 12 tiredly before saying, “Listen, we’re all fucking tired.  This is gonna be a long simulation so let’s just all try to cooperate, okay?”  She turns to the rest of the hall, saying, “Someone will be by in twenty minutes to collect the trays, alright?  The doctors wanted us to remind you all to take the pills - the enhancements need to be regular, so even if the pills suck, just do it, okay?”

05 and 09 push the cart out of the cell block and Gabriel can hear them rattle away as 12 gives him one last face, gesturing to him with the gun.  18 prods him slightly with the butt of her rifle and they too head off down the hall into the maze - and then into the facility.

_[We're death-defyin'_

_Coming in like lightnin']_

The moment they’re out of earshot, Gabriel gestures to Carlos and Jamie, snapping, “Get your blankets -”

“Oh shit,” 134 snickers in between bites, “127 is up to something _already_.”

“Crazy fucker,” 144 mutters from down the hall as 138 asks loudly, “Do you really think you can fucking get out of here so fast?”

“You know the doctors classified him as a ‘possible psychopath,’ right?” 141 says to the group, and Gabriel growls to them all, “I’d like to remind everyone that while I got a lowass score on the empathy test, I still fucking feel it.”

“I literally do not give a shit,” 133 mumbles through his food, as 144 taunts, “Awww, did we hurt your wittle feelings, Top Rank?”

“Nah, but y’all are sure fucking pushing that score lower by the second,” Gabriel says loudly before turning back towards his cell.  He grabs the blanket off the top cot as Louisa rises, watching him closely.  With surprising ease, he rips off a long shred and hands it to her, instructing, “Do that for the whole thing, and then for mine too.”  He turns to Jamie, who has their blankets and the tall kid mumbles, “This better fucking work, Gabriel.  I’m not about to sleep in this dumbass cell with nothing.”

“We can do it - they’re only sending in one person,” Gabriel tells him before gesturing to Louisa who is shredding the blankets behind him, “Copy her, do the same thing.  Carlos - I want you to check the pipes on your sink.”  Gabriel rushes over to the sink in their cell and begins feeling the bolts on the drainage pipe - two of them are fairly loose, gonna take some strength to get them off, but it’s nothing they can’t handle -

“How do they look, Carlos?” Gabriel calls out and somewhere down the hall someone is cackling, “The sinks??”

“I’m telling you, the man is fucking insane,” 141 says again as 135 asks, “Should we not be coordinating something?  ...Together?”

“Ask 127 - apparently he’s got some fucked up scheme going on,” 146 says and Gabriel shouts out, “If anyone else wants in on this, y’all can fucking slide your food and utensils down this way.”

“...Dude, what?” 144 says incredulously as 133 howls, “First the blankets, then the sinks, now the food??  What kind of MacGyver shit does your brain even think of?”

“The ones on the bottom are pretty loose,” Carlos says to him above the din, “The faucet pipe is pretty weak too.”

“Good shit, good shit,” Gabriel says, starting to loosen the bolts on the drainage pipes, telling him, “Take the pipes off the drain first, give the bolts to Jamie - here, Louisa, take these.”  He hands her the first bolt and begins unscrewing the second one, explaining, “Start knotting the strips onto that, we’re making chains here - Carlos, Jamie, which one of you has the better aim?”

“Uh...like for throwing things?” Jamie asks in between a loud rip of fabric, “I played college baseball -”

“Look at 131 - were you lined up for the majors there, Babe Ruth?” 134 chuckles and Gabriel says over her, “Great, Jamie, that’s awesome.  Louisa, when you get a second, toss him our canned meat.  Also both of our spoons and one fork.  We’ll keep the rest for ourselves.  Jamie, follow Louisa and start knotting the bolts.”

“What in the fucking hell?” 138 mumbles as the strips of the fabric are steadily linked together.  Gabriel gets the second bolt off and hands it to Louisa and then stares at the straight pipe in his hands.  Cheap metal, not very thick, but good enough -

“Carlos, do you have your pipe off?” Gabriel asks him as he pulls himself up from under the sink to assess the faucet part.  After a grunt and a pause, Carlos says, “Yup, give it to Jamie too?”

“No - pick an ended and start grinding it down on the concrete.”

There’s a long, quiet pause until Carlos mutters, “Oh holy fuck, are you serious?”

“We’re not gonna use it if we don’t have to, but never get rid of your back up plans.  Louisa, toss one end of that rope to Jamie.”  Louisa watches him silently, but eventually heads over to the bars and hurls one of the bolt ends to the other side of the hall.  Gabriel doesn’t have to look to know that Jamie caught it, and he says, “Link them together.”

“...Is this going where I think it’s going?” 134 asks with an awed whisper and Gabriel says loudly, “Probably not.  Move, Louisa.”

“Did you just really make a fucking trip rope out of the blankets?  There’s no way this will work,” 138 states and Gabriel chuckles as Louisa moves.

“You motherfuckers think you know me so well,” he states coldly, with a hard, brittle, vicious edge to his tone, his words curling into the air like whispers of dark, churning smoke -

He’s had to shove doubts down the throats of everyone he’s ever met -

Everyone except one person.

And Gabriel will give everything - even his fucking pride - to rise to the potential that one person sees in him.

Gabriel whacks at the faucet with the pipe as Louisa shouts in surprise and jerks away to the cots.  He hits it another time, twisting the weak metal head at an angle towards the hallway, past the sink and straight towards the open cell bars.

He turns the water on and it starts spraying onto the floor with a surprising amount of strength.

And then - pipe in his more accurate right hand -

He smashes the handle off.

_[Look out, we're strikin'_

_Ready set, ready set let's go]_

Gabriel grins viciously as the water pours out, falling to the concrete floor and already beginning to spill out into the hallway.

Even if this particular plan fails, now their sink is broken.

And someone from the 1-25 group will have to figure out a way to fix it.

“...Should I do that too?” Carlos asks and Gabriel says, “No, keep working on the pipe.  We don’t have much time.  Alright, positions.  Louisa, you’re on our end of the tripwire.  Be sure to keep the fork on you.  Carlos, when you’re done with that pipe, you’re on that end.  Keep the pipe handy, but the moment the tripwire is pulled, I want you flinging food at them - aim for the eyes.  Jamie, you take all those cans - you’re our point in this.”

“...Did I hear that correctly?” 138 mumbles but Gabriel plows on, gesturing to Jamie, “The moment they are lined up, you are throwing cans at their head.  Hard.  Don’t hold back.  If you concuss them, that only makes this easier -”

“The fuck??” 144 shouts and Gabriel grits his teeth, saying loudly, “Once they’re distracted, Louisa and Carlos pull the rope.  The second they’re off-balance, Carlos, you’re throwing food at them - again, aim for the eyes.  Louisa, you and me are gonna be over here, ready.”

“Holy shit, you ARE a fucking psychopath,” 141 snarls and Gabriel hears -

Gabriel hears the rattling of the cart.

 _FUCK_.

“Positions, now,” he snaps at them and - shockingly - they all take their places: Louisa to his left with one end of the blanket rope wrapped around her hand, Carlos on the other end to the left of Jamie (but to Jamie’s right), Jamie standing there, clutching three cans of whatever in his left hand and already hefting one in his right.  The water has managed to cover a good deal of the hallway floor and with one last burst of mundane-to-unique thinking, Gabriel rushes to the cot, seizes the two trays of food, and runs back to his position.

He quickly hurls slops of oatmeal and limp spinach on the hallway floor into the puddle, where they mingle with the water into a weird, off-green color and Louisa chokes a little at the sight of it.  Gabriel drops the trays behind him and hefts the pipe in his hand again, straightening it out just a little bit.  He drops to a fighting stance, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his right hand twiddling the pipe and his left hand open-palmed and ready -

He only has a few minutes left to wait.

Gabriel pushes all distractions from his mind, even as the rest of the group hurls doubts and confusions and swear words at him.  He can practically _sense_ Louisa by his side - slightly low to the ground to keep the rope down - and he can feel the tension radiating off of Carlos and Jamie across from them.

They wait patiently.

_[This fire's blazin'_

_We're troublemakin']_

Despite the chaotic noise in the hall, Gabriel’s ears pick out the sound of the cart and footsteps, approaching, approaching -

“...What the fuck are you all yelling about?” 09 asks as he and the cart rattle into view -

“DUDE!” 134 screams, but if she wants to warn him or distract him, Gabriel will never know -

The cart crosses the rope and 09 pauses when his sneakers hit the disgusting oatmeal-spinach puddle with a small splash -

“...Wait, what the fuck -?” 09 asks slowly as he looks down at the floor and -

_[We got you shakin'_

_Ready set, ready set let's go]_

Across the hallway, Jamie hurls the first can.

There’s a loud meaty thunk as it _smashes_ into the side of 09’s head and people are shouting and there’s shrieking and 09 stumbles, which is when Gabriel shouts, “NOW.”

Louisa and Carlos pull the rope to his calf-level and 09 - already off-balance - skids in the slick, gooey oatmeal-spinach-water puddle and staggers and -

His feet catch on the rope and he’s shouting, trying to anchor himself on the cart -

But the cart can’t grip the floor properly - there is only water and smears of oatmeal and spinach.

As 09 puts his weight on the cart, he pushes it too much and it pops forward like a rocket, rattling off down the hall and 09 is stumbling, shouting blindly, struggling to regain his balance -

THUNK -

Another can whacks him in the head as a blob of oatmeal smacks onto his face and Louisa is upright now - she too is in the same stance as Gabriel - 09 is slipping backwards towards them, desperately struggling to regain his footing as the third can smacks into his forehead and more oatmeal hits his face - he’s trying to raise his left arm defensively -

His right hand grips the bars of Cell 1 and he staggers back against it, regaining his balance for the first time -

But it’s already too late.

Gabriel has been so patient this morning.

As if on cue,

His patience switches to impatience.

Gabriel pounces on him, snaking his arms through the bars and around his neck - he smacks the pipe across 09’s throat and his left hand grabs the other end and Gabriel -

Gabriel pulls.

...Hard.

_[Heat' em up,_

_Heat' em up,_

_Heat' em up_

_Heat'em up,_

_Heat'em up]_

09 flails, choking and gasping and shuddering as his windpipe is steadily being crushed by the bent metal and for a second -

Everyone who can see them is watching in horror.

Gabriel is dimly aware that across the hall, Jamie’s jaw has dropped slightly and Carlos is staring at him with huge eyes, 133 and 134 are at the bars of their cell adjacent to Carlos and Jamie, screaming and yelling.  Beside him Louisa tenses and hesitates and -

Gabriel does not _want_ to blame them -

But they are not like him.

And this is why

He is the one standing at the top.

This is why

He is going to be something great.

...Jack never judges Gabriel for his ruthlessness.

Because Jack only ever encourages Gabriel’s ruthlessness.

_[We're death-defyin'_

_Coming in like lightnin']_

Because where others see the fight and the fire and the anger, where others see something criminally mundane and stereotypically ordinary and emotionally weak, where others tell him to cut down his impatience and channel it into patience -

Jack sees only potential.

_>  "I'm getting better at this." <_

...Gabriel thinks he can already hear Jack’s laughter when he tells him about his shitty ideas and how his stupid plan had somehow succeeded and he can already see - just faintly - the brilliant smile Jack will give him as he playfully teases him about breaking out of jail by throwing cans and food at a guard.

It takes only a fraction of a second to think of -

But it’s enough for Gabriel’s impatience to destroy his vestiges of pride and patience.

_[Look out, we're strikin'_

_Ready set, ready set let's go - GO.]_

“THE KEY,” he roars at Louisa as he doubles down on his efforts to choke out 09, whose hands are struggling to reach past the bars and grip at Gabriel, but the angle is too awkward for him, his hands are smacking against the cell bars uselessly and his feet are slipping out from under him and the words snap Louisa back into action and she’s reaching through the bars to his belt -

“GOT THEM,” she shouts back at him and Gabriel snaps at her, “GET THE DOOR -”

“YOU’RE BLOCKING IT,” she shouts back and Gabriel snarls, releasing the pipe and 09 gasps as air rushes back to his lungs -

But Gabriel slams his right hand in the side of his head and pushes him to the left -

Technically, based on how he’s positioned, it’s 09’s left too.

09 shouts something hoarsely as Gabriel withdraws his arms briefly before jumping to the left to follow his flailing form along the bars and the moment they’re away from the door part of the cell bars, Gabriel has his arms back through the spaces and wrapped around his neck in a chokehold, 09’s fingers scratching and scrambling along Gabriel’s forearm -

But Gabriel locks his right hand over his left bicep and continues to pull, growling to 09, “Shhh, patience, _mijo_ \- sleep.”

Louisa unlocks the door and slides it open darting out into the hallway and Gabriel tells her, “Get the gun.”

There’s not much struggle there.

09 is rapidly losing consciousness.

Louisa pulls the gun from where it is hanging on his right shoulder and hoists it towards the guard’s weakening form, saying, “Let go, Gabriel.”

“He’s not out yet -”

“I said, let go!”

“He’s almost asleep -”

“GABRIEL, YOU’RE HURTING HIM.”

Gabriel huffs and releases his grip and 09 slumps weakly to the floor, wheezing and sputtering as his hands claw at his raw, red throat, his chest heaving as he struggles to get more air.  Gabriel sighs and steps to the door, avoiding the spray of the faucet and casually walks out into the hallway.  He gestures to Carlos and Jamie and after a long second of assessing him, Louisa turns and heads to their cell.  Gabriel looks down at 09, who is still struggling to breathe and whose eyes are struggling to focus and Gabriel mutters, “...Sorry.  Really wish you guys had sent 12 instead.”

He picks up the pipe on the floor as Louisa and Jamie get their cell door open.

The cell block is silent save for the sound of rushing water and the gasps of someone who maybe -

Maybe -

Had come a little too close to death.

“...Jesus Christ, dude,” Carlos whispers as the four of them look at 09, whose chest is starting to rise and fall more normally again, but who is still too disoriented and weak to do anything more than breathe.  Gabriel shrugs a little before saying with a distant voice, “Low empathy score.”

_ > "Much better." <_

“You sick fuck,” 134 snarls at him and Gabriel glances at her with a hard, empty look in his eyes, saying coldly, “...If this were a real terrorist prison cell, they’d shoot you all the moment we escape.”

Her eyes grow wide in horror and beside her, 133 looks terribly ill.

Gabriel smirks at them, muttering, “Remember that the next time you choose to mock the best soldier in the room.”

“They’re gonna stop you!” 138 shouts from the cell next to Gabriel’s and Louisa’s, “They completely outnumber you!”

“They won’t stop me,” Gabriel says in a bored, mundane tone, casually stepping over 09’s weak form as he heads to the gate that leads into the rest of the facility, Louisa, Carlos, and Jamie falling in line behind him.  Gabriel chuckles loudly:

“In case you forgot, I’m the best at getting out of this maze.”

_[This fire's blazin' - GO!_

_We're troublemakin' - GO!]_

\---------

5:46 am.

That’s the time on the clock when they cross the threshold out of the maze portion of the facility and into the actual dorm areas.

But even better than seeing the visible temporal proof of Gabriel’s impatience - they had been in the cells for less than three hours -

Is seeing the look on 12’s face as the four of them enter the atrium area.

_>  "Just how I like it." <_

In fact, almost all of the 1-25 group is sitting in there, playing cards, taking naps, shooting the shit, and almost all of them look sickeningly stunned as Gabriel smiles brightly at them before directing his burning gaze at 12, stating with fangs bared:

“How’s that for luck, jackass?”

In a hot flash, 12 is upright with his rifle pointing at Gabriel, snarling something that sounds less like a human language and more like an animalistic roar, but someone shouts at him, “SIT YOUR ASS DOWN, No. 12.”

The lead general - flanked by two “real soldiers” - steps into the atrium from the “directors’ hallway,” and strides her way over to Gabriel who gives her a languid, easy smirk as she walks right up to him, dark eyes assessing him sharply.

“Thought you guys were gonna make this one a challenge,” Gabriel teases her and she scowls, saying sharply, “...Well done, No. 127.”

“You didn’t even change the maze pattern from last time - that’s just lazy, General,” Gabriel says with a hard, obsidian edge to his mocking tone.  She stares him down coolly before asking slowly, “Are any of you hurt?”

The other three shake their heads and Gabriel shrugs absentmindedly, “I have a few scratches but I’ll live.  You might want to send someone to check on 09, however.”

“We are aware of the situation,” she tells him with ice in her voice and Gabriel says, “I should have known.  Are you gonna send a plumber too?”

“We have people working on it,” she states and Gabriel chuckles, “Oooooh ‘people’ - how authoritative.  Can we get breakfast?  I’m starving.”

“You will go to the directors’ room immediately for questioning.  You may get breakfast after,” the general tells him sternly and Gabriel sighs, “Fine, alright, gotta give the bosses the information they want.  C’mon guys, the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can eat.”  Gabriel practically skips around her and the other soldiers and with less vivaciousness, the other three follow him towards the exit leading to the directors’ hall.

But Gabriel pauses, asking her with mild confusion, “Are we set for the usual schedule, ma’am?”

“...No,” she says to the entire room with frost to her words, “There is no schedule for today or any of the remaining simulation days.  Consider it a free week, No. 127.”

Without Gabriel knowing it, without him meaning to -

The groan slips out of his mouth:

“Fuck, I’m gonna be so _bored_.”

Where is Jack when he needs him?

\---------

_We got you shakin'_

_Ready set, ready set let's go_

_GO_

_GO_

_GO_

_Ready set, ready set let's go_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ana: All the same, you're lucky to be alive.  
> Soldier: 76: My old boss used to say there's no such thing as luck - just good genetics.  
> Ana: He sounds like a jerk.  
> Solider: 76: Kind of was.
> 
> \- "Old Soldiers" comic
> 
> \---------
> 
>  
> 
> Ever notice how our craziest ideas come when we least expect them?
> 
> Me @ 11 pm last night: This fic is fine as it is, it ends on a good note, it mirrors Shiver perfectly, it ends happy and cute and fluffy. That's a good way to end. We don't need to talk about how Gabriel got out of his cell. I'm not smart enough to write about his tactics - he's way more clever than me.
> 
> Me @ 3 am this morning: Oh god DAMMIT now I have to write this.
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry if it's not the kind of food fight you were expecting but I feel like this is even more in-character? Gabriel Reyes chokes out a rival candidate and gets out of his cell after only being in it for three hours? He proves why he's the best SEP candidate and gets to be a totally amazing asshole while doing it? Fucking A+.
> 
> Maybe this is why he only picked five other people to work with in Overwatch?
> 
> Anyways, HOLY SHIT, thank you everyone for all the love and comments and AHHH, I am AMAZED at how reception for this fic and my crazy fucking action scenes is going?? You guys are the best! I'll be responding to comments soon! Mucho Amor <3
> 
> I've seen a few comments encourage me to write more or ask if I have plans for more stuff (I love all of you, omg, seriously I cannot believe you guys are enjoying this stuff so much) and as an answer:
> 
> http://imgur.com/da4BzDf
> 
> OH BOY.
> 
> DO I HAVE SOMETHING PLANNED.
> 
> It's not quite ready yet - I'm still working on getting through the first half, like jfc, IT'S SO LONG YOU GUYS, maybe I'll break it down into multiple parts for easier reading? We're talking like...50-60 chapters minimum for the whole thing - but yeah, oh boy, the reason I feel so comfortable writing Gabriel and Jack is because I've been working on drafting this for awhile now. Until it goes up, I'll be working on smaller stuff like the upcoming Reaper76 Valentines Week or other shorter pieces that are standalone. When I think on it a bit more, I might post some McHanzo stuff too? Not sure yet, we'll see where this crazyass brain of mine takes me.
> 
> Until then, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. I AM FUCKING FLOORED. 
> 
> You can find me at segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com or message me here or something IDK. End me. I cannot believe this. I love everyone.


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